I want to apologize in advance to a couple of the parks I’m about to haphazardly review. If you’ve read my posts on the state parks I have visited in 2024, then nothing I say (I think?) will be new. But the format I’m using–that tier chart that was once so popular on YouTube–means I have to be concise. Make hard choices. Pretend to pass firm judgement. So… Here we go!

I know that the wonky chart above (made in Canva at too late of an hour to perfect all the alignment issues) is laughable at first glance. Those little thumbnail pictures mean nothing! So I’ll walk through my ranking here, in words, as one might expect a writer to do.

Let’s start at the top, where I’ve placed Ravine Gardens State Park. When we visited last week, I was happily transported mentally (and almost physically) out of the state of Florida, thanks to its unusual possession of some actual elevation change and some of its flora (ash trees and azaleas, to be precise). Florida nature is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But gosh, do I miss the Appalachians. This park let me pretend I was elsewhere for a while, and provided an easy, family-accessible nearly two mile walk, which includes a suspension bridge, a spring-fed pond, and lots of interpretive plaques dedicated to the history of the local area.

Next are my “A” tier parks: Fort Cooper, Hillsborough River, Honeymoon Island, and Weeki Wachee Springs. I’ll address each one sequentially.

Fort Cooper was a nice park thanks to its quaint, quintessential Florida beauty, variety of hiking trails available, historical background, and relaxing picnic area bordering a large lake (which also had a small playground for the young folk to enjoy). The heat of the day we visited and the particular construction of my stroller meant that I left a lot unexplored at Fort Cooper. Alas.

Hillsborough River, like Ravine Gardens, has a bit of an elevation change on its trails. This variation in the norm (that is, flatness) is always a draw, but Hillsborough River State Park also has a cool bridge, a fairly mighty (for Florida) river with actual rapids, good biking infrastructure, and a camping area I’ve not made any use of. It’s another great place to go when you’re tired of cypress swamps, pine flatwoods, marshes, or the beach.

Honeymoon Island offers its visitors both an idealized Florida with soft white sand beaches with neat palms and its real counterpart: rocky shorelines with sea oats and bird nests and scrubby palmettos. It’s an excellent choice for a place to visit for a beach day in the Tampa Bay Area, as the entrance fee isn’t too steep, parking is plentiful, bathrooms and showers and even cafes abound, and the crowds aren’t too killer. The beach isn’t the only reason to visit, though, as there’s a sizeable playground, a bike trail (sans shade), and a mile-or-so-long trail that offers nice views of an eagle’s nest.

On the (for me, many) days that swimming at the beach isn’t what I am after, then swimming in the crisp, clear water of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park is an excellent alternative–if I can get my butt up and out of the door in a timely fashion. (Entrance is restricted to the park’s capacity, and there are apparently many days that its capacity is reached fairly early on.) There’s noting in the way of hiking or biking at this park, but swimming in a spring-fed river is always a physical and mental delight, and the chance at seeing a wild manatee browsing around is enticing. My children really liked the child splashpad area and in the past I enjoyed the short tube ride you can take if you pay to rent a tube. The boat ride must be awesome, though I’ve not yet seen it, and of course the mermaid show is a huge draw (that I have also never watched). We found a humble playground in a quiet part of the park, and my oldest son liked the change of pace from swimming to climbing, jumping, and running.

You may have already noticed that I had no heart to regret any natural area I’ve visited, so I’ll end now with the two parks that landed in “I will remember it fondly… From my couch.”

Lake Kissimmee State Park had its charming bits–such as the little bait and ice-cream shop that sits on the lake near the marina–and it did have a little old playground that, as always, kept my oldest son happy. It also had a tower to climb that gave a nice view of the prairie, and a replica cow camp that really would have been quite the draw… had it been open during the season we came! But beyond those things, nothing was too accessible for our family of two adults, one toddler, and one baby. We weren’t equipped, or really motivated to, hike its long dirt trails in the late Spring heat. I can only imagine that there was lots of beauty to behold on their paths, but… No. Not in summer. We dawdled around and then went home.

I feel almost guilty for placing Dade Battlefield Historic Park so lowly. It has a neat little museum that gives a decent rundown on the wars fought between the Seminoles and the US government here in Florida, it has some beautiful spreading live oak trees, and there were lots of flyers up when I was there advertising events that teach you how to do old handicrafts. (Yes, there was also a small playground. Speaking of which, why do so many Florida state parks have tiny, 1990s style playgrounds? I have yet to see one that had one of the new, uber-plastic-y ones or those composite wood ones built to look like they’re made of only forest litter: rocks, logs, etc. etc…) It really does feel cruel to rank it relatively poorly, but to be truthful, I’m not sure I will go out of my way to see it all again, now that I’ve seen it twice. (Maybe I will go again when my boys are much older, if they end up interested in history.) I will say, too, that the last time I visited must have been not long after a controlled burn, which surely did not help with my conception of the park’s relative worthiness of revisiting. Its (fairly short) trails were pretty barren, so overall the scenery was lacking.

And there we have it. That’s my official ranking of the parks I’ve visited thus far, and–like Pilate–what I have written, I have written.