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Best Day Trips in Florida

This list represents the most popular day trips in Florida (learn more about Top Trails). Use this list to plan your next Florida day trips trip. Select a state and/or activity below to find even more top trails.

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#1. Outdoorsman's Paradise: Ocala National Forest

  
This is such a vast area with so many recreation opportunities, you could come here time and again and never tire of the nature show, crystal springs flowing into narrow rivers, spring-fed swimming ho…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Ocala , FL - Day Trips BestDay Trips Trail - Click to view all (About Top Trails)
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#2. Cattle, Oranges, and a Speedway: Avon Park, Sebring, & Lake Placid

  
The sleepy village of Avon Park deep in Florida’s belly hasn’t changed much in decades, which makes it a tempting day trip away from the din of the city. Drive southwest from Orlando, then turn south…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Sebring , FL - Day Trips BestDay Trips Trail - Click to view all (About Top Trails)
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#3. A Place for Mermaids: Brooksville & Weeki Wachee

  
Brooksville was a hotbed of blockade-runner activity during the Civil War, when Confederate troops counted on it to supply them with beef, pork, and salt. Each year in January, the Brooksville Raid Ci…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Weeki Wachee , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#4. Climb Mount Dora: Mount Dora, Tavares, & Leesburg

  
Sample an area that is filled with lakes, miles of green countryside, and still enough rural flavor to give you a rest from city life. Stay in a highway motel, an upscale hotel or inn, or a rustic fis…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Tavares , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#5. The Space Coast's South Side: Sebastian Inlet & Vero Beach

  
Growth in Florida is spurting alarmingly, but developers and tourist hordes haven’t yet overrun this stretch of the state. The community of Sebastian has parks, marinas, and yacht brokerages that lend…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Vero Beach , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#6. Celery and the Saint Johns River: Oviedo, Sanford, & DeBary

  
Barely over the county line north of Orange County, enter Seminole County near Oviedo. You’re still in Greater Orlando with its ever-devouring growth, but this is also lake and river country, with som…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Oviedo , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#7. Culture on the Beach: Sarasota & Bradenton

  
Long known as one of Florida’s cultural capitals, little Sarasota shines. It has its own theaters, cabaret, dance companies, film festival, symphony, chamber music group, dinner theaters, chorale, jaz…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Sarasota , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#8. Quiet Lakes and Baseball: Inverness

  
This area is bordered to the west by the Withlacoochee State Forest and to the east by sprawling Tsala Apopka Lake. Ten thousand years ago, Paleoindians thrived along the warm, life-giving waters of t…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Inverness , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#9. The City on the Bay: Tampa

  
Save this trip for a two- or three-day weekend because each of the theme parks, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and Adventure Island, is worth more than one day. In fact, season passes are a good value if you…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Tampa , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#10. Florida's First Theme Park: Winter Haven

  
Water skiing was not invented here, but the sport owes much of its popularity to warm Florida waters, where it became a year-round passion. It’s still one of the most important reasons to come to this…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Winter Haven , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#11. America's Oldest City: Saint Augustine & Point Vedra Beach

  
Visitors come back to St. Augustine time and again to try the great variety of accommodations, from lavish beach and golf resorts to bed-and-breakfast inns housed in 400-year-old buildings. You can sp…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Saint Augustine , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#12. A Tropical Delight: Saint Petersburg - Clearwater

  
In the early days, the trip from Tampa all the way to St. Petersburg –Clearwater took an extra half a day after passengers got off the train because they had to go all around Tampa Bay. They kept stre…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Saint Petersburg , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#13. A Land of Lakes: Polk City & Lakeland

  
Just barely past Orlando’s attractions area, you’ll find a cluster of small communities that offer a Mayberry-like atmosphere. Don’t blink as you go past it on the highway, or you’ll miss the Polk Cit…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Lakeland , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#14. Sleepy Little Towns: Clermont, Bushnell, & Dade City

  
As the sprawling shadow of Orlando spreads over it, Clermont, just west of Orlando, is quickly losing its identity as a separate community. Still, Clermont is in pretty lake country, with open spaces…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Bushnell , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#15. The Birthplace of Speed: Ormond Beach, Port Orange, Ponce Inlet, & New Smyrna Beach

  
This string of communities has attracted beachgoers to their shores for more than a century—some to speed across the flat sands in their racecars, others to find new lives in the New World, and most t…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Port Orange , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#16. The Home of Tarzan: Ocala & Silver Springs

  
Today it’s a busy crossroads city, growing explosively with modestly priced retiree developments, but just a generation ago, Ocala was a small town serving the dozens of sprawling horse farms stretchi…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Ocala , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#17. The Place for Space: Christmas & Cape Canaveral

  
It's no joke. There really is a Christmas, Florida, once just a quaint post office where people had their cards postmarked. Today it’s quickly becoming a part of the Orlando crush, a greenspace and hi…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Cape Canaveral , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#18. In the Center of Things: Barberville - Crescent City & Palatka

  
Once upon a time, each of these communities was a waypoint for streams of north-south traffic on the highway, railroad, and river; but the interstates stole their thunder, and there are still long str…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Crescent City , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#19. Spiritualism and Springs: Cassadaga, Orange City, DeLand, & DeLeon Springs

  
This jaunt covers 10,000 years of history in a nutshell, and you’ll want to come back for more. The oldest canoe found in the Western Hemisphere was fished out of DeLeon Springs and sent to a museum i…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Orange City , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

#20. The Nature Coast: Homosassa, Crystal River, & Cedar Key

  
Gushing springs, ancient Indian relics, seas of manatees floating freely in pristine waters. They add up to a part of Florida unlike any other. This day trip covers a lot of territory. You’ll enjoy it…
From the guidebook "Day Trips from Orlando"
Crystal River , FL - Day Trips
Published by The Globe Pequot Press

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