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Camping in Florida?


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Not very realistic. We camp a lot and have never had to deal with them. If you plan to camp in St. Augustine at Anastasia State Park, you'll need to make reservations months in advance. It's quite a popular site.

 

I would not recommend camping here between mid-May and late October. It's too hot and wet. November to April are the best months for camping. You can get away with early May, but you take a chance on it being too hot and/or rainy.

 

Since you mentioned serious camping and backpacking, I'm going to guess you're tent campers. Some of the parks have primitive camp sites if that's your style, but most also have full facilities. Our state parks are nice, as are the national parks here, but there are also plenty of private KOA types of campgrounds.

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Ive lived here my whole life and didnt realize we had those here! LOL. I was more scared of the boars around the tent than snakes!

 

Yes, we have rattlers, and several other venomous species of snakes, but I've never encountered them while camping. Boars, yes! And racoons. We have some highly intelligent racoons who can figure out how to open coolers.

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My DH tent camped many years ago in the Keys and absolutely hated it. He said the bugs were all over him, forcing him to literally zip himself inside of his sleeping bag and sweat all night long. After a night (or maybe 2) of this he paid for his whole family to stay in some swanky resort (the rest of them were in a trailer and apparently didn't have room for him in it).

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I've camped in Florida, but only in actual campsites, not in the wilderness (unless Disney's Wilderness Campsite counts)

In campsites, there's enough human traffic that dangerous critters don't go there.

However we were caught in a huge storm, and were issued a crocodile warning as the place literally got swamped! We didn't see any though.

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We camped in the Everglades and loved it. We camped in a campground at Alligator Point and also on a chickee. We saw a lot of wildlife while canoeing and driving in our car, but never saw a rattlesnake.

 

The no see 'ums were the worst part of the camping trip for us, but we would definitely do it again.

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We've tent camped quite a bit in FL and loved every minute of it. Our favorite campgrounds include many of the state parks (usually need reservations way in advance for waterfront places), the Dry Tortugas (no reservations, but you need a boat to get there - absolutely worth it for us), and Fort Desoto (county park and campground - very, very, nice, but better during the week as it gets crowded with noisy folks on weekends). The Everglades campgrounds are so-so - and had the worst bugs when we were there, but we're dedicated campers and I'd probably camp there again.

 

We've never once come across a rattlesnake or other dangerous critter.

 

We're not KOA fans. We prefer more natural campgrounds with less amenities and noise.

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