🥾 ActiveWeekend · from Tampa, FL
Highlands Hammock — Old-Growth Swamp Trails & the Sebring Ridge
One of Florida's first four state parks, Highlands Hammock preserves a rare stand of ancient subtropical forest on the Lake Wales Ridge, about two hours southeast of Tampa. This two-day trip pairs that old-growth wilderness with the lakes and historic heart of Sebring. Day one explores the hammock itself — a compact network of short trails and a cypress swamp catwalk that carry you among thousand-year-old oaks, towering cabbage palms, and some of the largest trees in peninsular Florida, with alligators and wading birds in the black-water sloughs. Day two shifts to the ridge's lakes and to Sebring's landmark Circle, the planned town center laid out in 1912, before the drive home. It is a quieter, greener corner of Florida than the coast, built around walking under a genuinely old forest canopy.
Day 1 — The old-growth hammock trails & cypress swamp catwalkDay 2 — Lake Jackson & Sebring's historic Circle
Day 1 — Highlands Hammock State Park, FL
Day 1 — Highlands Hammock State Park, FL
🚗 2 hr 5 min driving📍 6 stops
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Morning
🚗
Drive
Tampa, FL → Highlands Hammock State Park
1 hr 50 min8:00 AM → 9:50 AM
Cypress Swamp Trail & Catwalk
★ 4.7The Cypress Swamp Trail is the signature walk of Highlands Hammock — a boardwalk and elevated catwalk that carries you directly out over a black-water cypress swamp on the edge of Little Charley Bowlegs Creek. The catwalk, a historic wooden span built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, leads into the heart of the swamp where buttressed cypress trunks rise from the tea-dark water and alligators drift silently below. Wading birds, turtles, and the occasional otter appear in the sloughs, and the light filtering through the canopy is extraordinary in early morning. It is a short loop but one of the most atmospheric swamp walks in the state; go early for stillness and mist on the water.
9:50 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
Ancient Hammock & Big Oak Trails
★ 4.7Highlands Hammock protects one of the finest tracts of old-growth subtropical hardwood forest left in Florida, and a cluster of short interconnecting trails threads its deepest, oldest sections. The Ancient Hammock and Big Oak trails wind beneath live oaks estimated at more than a thousand years old, their limbs draped in Spanish moss and resurrection fern and their trunks among the largest of their kind in the state. The understory of cabbage palm, wild coffee, and needle palm is dense and green, the air cool and shaded even at midday. Walk slowly and quietly — deer, barred owls, and pileated woodpeckers are common, and the sense of walking through genuinely primeval forest is the whole point.
10:50 AM📍 See location
Hammock Inn Café
★ 4.6The park's own café near the CCC Museum serves a simple, welcome midday meal — sandwiches, soups, homemade pie, and cold drinks — in a rustic setting that keeps you inside the park between trail loops. It is basic and seasonal in its hours, so check availability at the gate, but when open it is by far the most convenient lunch and saves a drive into town. The shaded porch is a fine place to rest tired legs before the afternoon's walks under the oaks.
11:50 AM📍 See location
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Afternoon
Loop Drive & CCC Museum
★ 4.9A three-mile scenic loop road threads the park, giving access to the trailheads and passing through pine flatwoods, prairie, and the edge of the hammock where deer and wild turkey feed in the late afternoon. Along the way, the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum tells the story of the young men who built the park's roads, trails, and catwalk in the 1930s — Highlands Hammock is the only Florida state park with a museum dedicated to their work. It is a good way to cover ground and cool off between walks, and the low afternoon light on the prairie stretches is excellent for wildlife watching. Ranger-led tram tours also run the back roads seasonally.
12:50 PM📍 See location
Fern Garden & Wild Orange Grove Trails
★ 4.8To close the day in the park, the short Fern Garden and Wild Orange Grove trails lead through a lush, ferny understory and past the remnants of an old citrus grove slowly being reclaimed by the hammock. These quiet loops are shaded and cool as the day winds down, alive with birdsong and the rustle of squirrels and armadillos in the leaf litter. They make a gentle final walk before heading into Sebring for the night, letting the deep green of the old forest be the last impression of the day.
1:50 PM📍 See location
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Evening
🚗
Drive
Highlands Hammock State Park → Sebring, FL
15 min5:00 PM → 5:15 PM
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Sebring lodging
Sebring, fifteen minutes east of the park, is the seat of Highlands County and the natural overnight base — a small ridge city set among lakes and best known for its historic downtown Circle and the Sebring International Raceway. Lodging runs to reliable chain hotels along US-27 and a handful of lakeside inns; the Kenilworth Lodge and the Chateau Elan at the raceway are the more characterful options when available. Book ahead in race weekends, when the town fills. A relaxed dinner downtown near the Circle sets up the second day well.
Day 2 — Sebring & the Central Ridge, FL
Day 2 — Sebring & the Central Ridge, FL
🚗 2 hr driving📍 4 stops
🌅
Morning
🚗
Drive
Sebring, FL → Lake Jackson, Sebring
10 min8:00 AM → 8:10 AM
Lake Jackson & the Lakeshore Trail
★ 4.8Sebring wraps around Lake Jackson, a broad, clear ridge lake that gives the town its setting and its recreation. A paved lakeshore path and a chain of lakeside parks make an easy morning walk or run with wide water views, fishing piers, and a sandy swimming beach at the town's edge. Ospreys and anhingas work the shoreline, and the open sky over the lake is a fine contrast to the enclosed forest of the day before. It is a relaxed, active start to the day — stretch out along the water before the drive to the historic center.
8:10 AM📍 See location
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Lunch
Historic Sebring Circle
★ 4.6The heart of Sebring is the Circle, a landmark roundabout laid out in 1912 as the center of founder George Sebring's planned city — modeled, the story goes, on the sun-worshipping design of Heliopolis, with the streets radiating like spokes from a central park. The surrounding downtown has been restored into a walkable district of early-twentieth-century buildings housing shops, cafés, antique stores, and a historical museum. Stroll the ring, read the historical markers on the town's founding and its racing heritage, and get a feel for one of Florida's more unusual small-city layouts. It is an easy, atmospheric midday wander on foot.
9:10 AM📍 See location
🍽️ Lunch10:10 AM
Downtown Sebring lunch
The restored downtown around the Circle holds the best of Sebring's independent restaurants — cafés, a brewpub, and a few sit-down spots serving Southern comfort food and fresh local fare in historic storefronts. Pick a patio table on the ring for a relaxed lunch and some people-watching before the drive north. It is an unhurried, local-flavored meal that rounds off the ridge-town portion of the trip.
2 options · tap to switch
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Afternoon
Highlands Hammock — final short loop
★ 4.7On the way out of town the road passes back by Highlands Hammock, and a final short trail — the Young Hammock loop or another of the quick interior walks — is a fitting last stretch of the old forest before the long drive home. These loops are flat, shaded, and take under an hour, giving one more dose of oak canopy, ferns, and birdsong. It is an optional but rewarding way to end the active portion of the trip under the trees rather than on the highway, especially if the morning ran short.
12:00 PM📍 See location
🌙
Evening
🚗
Drive
Sebring, FL → Tampa, FL
1 hr 50 min5:00 PM → 6:50 PM
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