Withlacoochee River Park

This is a very nice park located just on the other side of Dade City. There are some wonderful trails that are well marked, clean, some paved, that you can take and see lots of nature. It is so peaceful and serene.

My wife and I were looking for a place to take our kids (actually dogs :)) for a hike and get some energy out. This park sounded good from their website and we are fans of the Dade City area so we decided to give it a whirl. There are miles of hiking here and we enjoyed just about every bit of it. The girls were happy as the trees gave a nice canopy of shade from the sun. There is a tower that overlooks the entire park. We will probably visit again when we are in the area. There were only two negatives that I would say that makes it a four star instead of five; the river is no where to be seen as I would guess it is just dried up in the area like a lot of central florida water sources and the mosquitos were so bad in some areas you felt like they might carry you off. Don’t let that dissuade you though, this is a nice park!

What a great park! We were looking for somewhere to camp last minute on a beautiful April Saturday. We don’t live too far from here, so we figured we’d check it out. While we were hoping to find somewhere with primitive camping set back a bit from everything (and everyone) else, we were satisfied with what we found. This park has campsites available for $ 5 per night, and you can fit 2 tents per campsite, which includes a picnic table, a fire ring, a grill, and firewood. There are 10 primitive sites, located about a ½ mile hike back from the observation tower and a little farther from the cars. Upon arrival, the ranger informed us that there was one other group and they chose campsite 10, so he put us on the other side on campsite 3. A younger couple did arrive later and they were at campsite 1, but we only saw them when walking along the trail. Our campsite was the best we saw there, as the trash can was on the trail, and then we were tucked back a bit with a large open area surrounded by woods. We could hear the other people, but for the most part we had the privacy we desired. Beautiful trails, the park is kept up well, and this would be a great place to camp with a group.
My son will be camping here with the Boy Scouts next month on the other side of the park, so I look forward to seeing how that’s set up. But we’re fans!
There are lots of other amenities located at this park, but we didn’t really explore too much. The park is pretty big, and worth a trip to visit.