Eco-Tourism Information for THE Beach's Natural Habitats

We’re not thrill-a-minute theme parks, 7-acre dance floors or jousting matches during dinner. What we are is crystalline bay and gulf waters, lazy spring-fed rivers, dense woodlands, and the prettiest white-sand coastline on the planet. Welcome to the place we call THE Beach.

These 181 or so miles contain some of Florida’s most diverse landscapes and her most unique features: the state’s only red bluffs, rare coastal dune lakes and the highest spot in the state is in northern Walton County—a whopping 345 feet above sea level!

The region beginning at Perdido Key at the Alabama-Florida border and stretching east to Gulf County provides no end to recreational pursuits. Gulf Islands National Seashore preserves portions of barrier islands and keys in the Pensacola area and on Okaloosa Island between Fort Walton Beach and Destin—more than 50 miles of gulf, bay and sound waters. Climb into cool underground bunkers, through dark tunnels and up steps to the top of pre-Civil War Fort Pickens, where Apache medicine man Geronimo was incarcerated in 1886. Snorkel around pieces of old fort where blue crabs, mullet and lion fish congregate. Bike a 40-mile trail encompassing portions of the seashore on Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach and Gulf Breeze. Picnic on Choctawhatchee Bay and hunt for hermit crabs. Dive one of the hundreds of sunken wrecks left behind over four centuries.

Inland rivers offer a refreshing alternative to the beach environment. The Black Water River(in Navarre and nearby Milton, the “canoeing capital of the world”) is one of a vanishing breed of wild rivers throughout the state, winding through the 200,000 acres of the Blackwater State Forest. The water is cool and pure with a slight reddish tinge, not black at all. It flows about 45 miles through stands of red cedar, slash pine, and a mixture of hardwoods.

Florida alligators, once slaughtered by the thousands for their hides, have made such a comeback as to be taken off the endangered species list. A visit to Gator Lake in St. Andrews State Park on Panama City Beach will reward you with a close-up view of these fearsome reptiles, mean-dering menacingly through the water or sunning themselves on the lake’s tiny island. Inland ponds and marshes are the best places to spot a gator, but don’t get too close or try to feed a wild alligator. Besides the obvious danger to you, alligators that are fed by humans quickly lose their natural fear of man, creating a public nuisance, and often have to be destroyed.

Plowing through the soft, silky sand, you might notice that it squeaks underfoot. We call it “singing” sand, which is actually pure white quartz, washed down from the Appalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico via the Apalachicola River during the last Ice Age. Over thousands of years, the quartz was ground, weathered, and eroded into particles. About 5,000 years ago, the particles began forming the sugar-sand islands and beaches of Northwest Florida.

More than its rich heritage and championship golf courses, its strong military presence and superb southern cuisine, THE Beach offers the solitude and beauty of nature’s creation, an outdoor world of untold discoveries.

THE Beach Resources