Bike Florida: Trail Boosts Sustainable Tourism

What better way to explore some of the country’s greatest natural treasures and historic sites than a bicycle tour through the back roads of Florida? And now, you can do it any time of the year! In an effort to help make Florida tourism greener, non-profit organization Bike Florida is bringing back year-round, long-distance bicycle touring for the first time in 25 years.

To inaugurate the new initiative, Herb Hiller and Linda Crider, co-founders of the modern-day Florida bicycling movement, will lead a week-long bicycle tour this October 10-16, starting and ending at Palatka, a rural county seat by the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida.

“For too long there’s been no organized comfortable cycling way to discover backroads Florida,” says Crider.  “These tours are organized for that, but also for fun.”

The 260-mile loop takes cyclists through state parks, as well as the Merritt Island and Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuges. Also on the itinerary is a stop at St. Augustine, the oldest city in the country and recently named one of the top ten best places to live by U.S. News & World Report. 

By 2013, the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop will become the longest paved, off-road loop trail in the American southeast. That same year will also mark the 500th anniversary of Spain’s colonization of “La Florida,”

named in 1513 by Ponce de Leon for its flowered land. Because wildflowers are abundant on the tour’s route, Florida Wildflower Foundation, a chief sponsor of the touring program, will use the loop to help launch the state’s wildflower tourism in celebration of its quincentennial year.

The new effort may be just what Florida tourism needs to draw more people to the nature, culture, and heritage of the state (instead of the standard big hotels and beach resorts) and the trademark of these tours will be their local access. Not only will cyclists experience Florida’s beautiful landscapes, but they will get to do so with local naturalists, writers, and historians all working to turn Florida tourism green.

Hiller, a leading advocate of sustainable tourism, understands the economic value in Florida’s “heads in beds” tourist industry, but also recognizes its drawbacks. “Tourism doesn’t champion environment or heritage,” he says. “Yet, apart from making visitors comfortable, what counts as much as using their presence among us to help accomplish our aims? I mean, aims that include protecting our natural resources, helping make our downtowns more livable and advancing diversity.”

Included in the tours are luggage-carrying support vehicles, on-road guides, maps and cue sheets, overnights in B&B’s, homestays and motels as well as all breakfasts and sit-down dinners.

For additional tours and prices, visit bikeflorida.org. For more information on Florida’s greenways and trails, visit

www.floridagreenwaysandtrails.com.

Photo courtesy of John Moran