State-Park

Anastasia gives you two completely different waters within walking distance. The Atlantic beach is wide and firm enough to walk for miles, with real surf. Salt Run, the tidal lagoon behind it, is protected, waist-deep in most places and the best beginner paddling in the region - rentals for kayaks, paddleboards and small sailboats operate there in season. The campground is one of the best in the state system, tucked into the maritime hammock. St. Augustine’s old town and its fort are ten minutes away, which makes this an easy base for a few days.

Most of the Keys have very little actual beach; Bahia Honda is the exception and it is why the park fills early. Sandspur Beach shelves so gently that children can walk out a long way in warm, clear water, and Calusa Beach on the other side is even calmer. The ruined Flagler railroad bridge arcs overhead, half of it removed, which makes the whole place look like a film set. Snorkelling is decent close in around the rocks though not reef-quality. It is a two-hour drive from Key Largo, so this works best as part of a Keys trip rather than a day out from Miami.

The Blackwater is tannin-stained but clean, and it runs over pure white sand that piles into broad bars on the inside of every bend. That geography makes it close to ideal for paddling with children: the current is gentle, the water is usually shallow enough to stand in, and there is a natural place to pull out and swim every few hundred yards. Local outfitters run canoe, kayak and tube trips with shuttles, in lengths from an hour to a full day. The park itself has a campground and a short trail through Atlantic white cedar. Water levels matter - too low and you drag.

Blue Spring is the largest winter manatee refuge on the St. Johns River, and on a cold January morning the run can hold several hundred animals packed into water that stays at 72 degrees. A boardwalk follows the run from the spring boil to the river, so the viewing needs no boat and works with a stroller. This is the rare wildlife sighting that is close to guaranteed rather than lucky. The trade-off is seasonal: while manatees are present the spring is closed to swimming and paddling, which typically means mid-November through March. In summer the animals leave and the spring becomes a swimming hole.

Caladesi can only be reached by boat, and that single fact keeps it emptier than any comparable beach on this coast. The ferry runs from Honeymoon Island every hour and gives you a four-hour window on the island, which is enough for a long swim and a walk up the beach away from the crowd near the dock. The Gulf water is warm and shallow with fine white sand. Behind the beach a marked kayak trail runs through mangroves in the bay. There is a snack bar and restrooms near the marina and nothing at all beyond that.

Curry Hammock has the calmest paddling water in the Keys - a shallow protected bay where the bottom is visible the whole way and there is nowhere for a novice to get into trouble. Boats are available at the launch, but not from the park - a third-party self-serve kiosk runs on a QR code and a smartphone, so have signal and a card. The beach is small and rarely crowded, which is the trade for it being less spectacular than Bahia Honda. In autumn the park hosts a raptor migration count, and on a good October day thousands of hawks and falcons funnel down the Keys directly overhead. The campground is one of the harder Florida reservations to get.

De Leon Springs pairs a circular walled swimming basin with something no other Florida spring has: a restaurant in the 1830s sugar mill where every table has its own griddle and you pour and flip your own pancakes from a jug of batter. Kids find this considerably more exciting than the spring. The wait for a table routinely exceeds an hour on weekends, so the usual order is to put your name down, swim while you wait, and eat after. The spring itself is a consistent 72 degrees with a dock and ladder entry rather than a beach.

Delnor-Wiggins solves the problem that makes beach days with small children hard: five parking areas spread along the mile of beach mean you are always within a short carry of the car, with restrooms and showers at each. The Gulf here is typically flat and shallow. The pass at the north end has a strong current and is not for swimming, but it is a good spot to watch boats and fish, and the observation tower gives a view over the mangroves. Loggerheads nest along this beach in summer. The lot fills by mid-morning in season.

Wakulla is on a different scale from the other Florida springs - the vent is over 180 feet down and the flow is enormous. The riverboat tour is the reason most families come: a flat-bottomed boat runs downriver past alligators, anhingas, turtles and often manatees, with a guide who has usually been doing it for decades. Swimming is from a dock and diving platform into genuinely deep water, so it suits confident swimmers rather than toddlers. The 1937 lodge above the spring still has its marble floors and a soda fountain, and is worth walking through even if you are not staying.

Florida’s highest waterfall is not what you would expect: a stream runs across flat ground, reaches the edge of a cylindrical sinkhole a hundred feet deep, and falls seventy-three feet into it. The water then vanishes into the aquifer, and its destination has never been established. A boardwalk and stairs descend to viewing platforms inside the sink. It is a short walk, well shaded, and genuinely strange. The fall depends entirely on rainfall - after a dry month it can be a trickle or nothing, so ask when you call. There is a small spring-fed lake for swimming and a campground.

Florida is riddled with caves but almost all of them are underwater; Florida Caverns is the one dry cave with public tours. Rangers lead groups through decorated rooms of stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws and flowstone, on a paved path with lighting, taking about forty-five minutes. It stays at 65 degrees, which in a Panhandle August is the main attraction. There are low sections that require ducking, so it is not stroller-friendly. Tour tickets are sold same-day on a first-come basis and sell out on holiday weekends. Above ground there are trails, a spring-fed swimming area and camping.

Fort Clinch is one of the best preserved nineteenth-century masonry forts in the country, and unusually you can walk almost all of it - the ramparts, the galleries, the kitchen, the bunk rooms. Rangers in period uniform staff it daily and stay in character, which children find either fascinating or unnerving. The beach below the fort is a well-known spot for finding fossilised shark teeth, especially at low tide near the jetty. Two campgrounds sit in the park, one on the Atlantic and one under a canopy of live oak and Spanish moss. The road in through the maritime forest is worth the drive on its own.

Key West is short on good beaches and this is the one locals use. The water drops off quickly compared to Bahia Honda, which makes it less suited to toddlers but much better for snorkelling - the rocky edges hold parrotfish, sergeant majors and the occasional small barracuda within a short swim of the sand. Behind the beach sits the Civil War fort itself, with the largest collection of seacoast cannon in the country and cool brick casemates that make a good hour out of the sun. Water shoes matter here; the entry is rocky.

Gilchrist Blue only became a state park in 2017, and it still feels less discovered than the springs nearer Orlando. The main boil is deep and blue, but the run leading from it to the Santa Fe is knee-to-waist deep over white sand - the ideal place to put a mask on a child for the first time, because they can stand up whenever they want to. Smaller satellite springs sit along the boardwalk. Capacity is limited and the gate closes when the lot fills, which on a hot Saturday can be before eleven.

Grayton has the Panhandle’s signature combination - sand so white it is uncomfortable to look at without sunglasses, and water that genuinely reads as emerald green in the right light. What makes it worth choosing over the identical beach either side is Western Lake, one of only a few dozen coastal dune lakes in the world. The lake sits directly behind the dunes, occasionally breaks through to the Gulf, and is calm brackish water you can paddle a kayak across while the children swim. Kayak and paddleboard rentals are on site, and the campground is well shaded.

Henderson Beach preserves a stretch of high natural dune right in the middle of Destin’s development, so you get the Emerald Coast water without the condo wall behind it. Boardwalks cross the dunes to a wide beach with clean facilities, outdoor showers and covered pavilions - the practical details that decide whether a beach day with young children works. A short nature trail loops through the scrub behind the dunes. Being in town, it is an easy stop rather than an expedition, and the parking situation is far better than the public beach accesses nearby.

Florida does not really do rapids, which is why the small run of Class II water on the Hillsborough draws people from across the state. You can watch it from a suspension footbridge without getting in a boat. Canoe and kayak rentals run a calmer stretch upstream through cypress and oak, with alligators and turtles as standard. The park is one of Florida’s original Civilian Conservation Corps builds from the 1930s and the stonework shows it. Do not come here to swim: the park’s pool has been closed since 2022 and there are no current plans to reopen it, and the river itself is not a swimming river. Parts of the trail network, including a section of the Rapids Trail, have also been closed - ring the park before building a day around any one of them. The shaded campground is good.

The Fish Bowl is a floating observatory sunk into the spring, so you walk down into it and find yourself below the surface looking out at manatees, snook and mullet stacked in the boil around you. It is the most reliable close manatee viewing in Florida because the park’s resident animals are non-releasable rescues who live here permanently, joined by wild ones in winter. The rest is a wildlife park of Florida native species - black bear, red wolf, panther, whooping crane - plus a famous elderly hippo who is a naturalised Florida citizen. Boardwalks throughout make it fully stroller-friendly.

Honeymoon Island is the accessible half of the pair - you drive straight onto it, park next to the sand, and the water is shallow and calm enough for small children. Shelling here is unusually good, especially after a winter front pushes material up the beach. The Osprey Trail runs through one of the last virgin slash pine stands on the coast and has active nests visible from the path most of the spring. There is a separate dog beach at the south end where dogs swim off-lead, which is rare in Florida state parks. The ferry to Caladesi leaves from here.

The Ichetucknee River runs six miles from a cluster of springs to the Santa Fe, and floating it is one of the great Florida family days. The water holds 72 degrees year-round and is clear enough to watch turtles and gar pass underneath you. Summer tube launches are capped and the north launch fills early, so arrive at opening. The shorter south launch float runs about 45 minutes and suits younger kids; the full north-launch float is around three hours and is better for ages 8 and up. Outside summer the tube concession closes but the park stays open for swimming and paddling.