Big Lagoon State Park

3 stars only because it isn’t that «removed» of park that one might imagine, but the trail Hiked was beautiful, the views from the lookout tower astonishing, and friendly people across the park. All in all very nice, just don’t like hearing sirens downtown when I’m walking in an estuary.

Second trip here! We brought our kids and in-​laws! Loved it! We did encounter jellyfish though!

All we needed was SUN!
GREAT place to camp!
Make your reservation 11 months out!
Go visit Navy Museum, a MUST for any age and it is FREE

Great place for staying a couple days no doubt. Everything is clean, accessible, and even when you need to leave to get supplies it’s 5 mins away. The camp host has firewood for sale ($ 5 for a big bundle) and can give you any info you need about the area. Take a look online and pick a site with shade (we were tent camping) and it’ll definitely help the experience. All in all for 4 people to stay 2 nights it was $ 44 which you can’t beat… highly recommend!

Great place. Plenty of nature and space to explore. A definite must see on any trip even for locals like me.

Beautiful walking trails and site seeing at this park. Love nature and wildlife I would like to return and journey through the rest of the trails and look for gators again since last time we didn’t get lucky enough to see one. Most definitely worth the $ 6 spent and will most likely return to camp and hike again soon

Big Lagoon State Park, together with St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, is supposedly one of two «gateways» to the Panhandle section of the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail. So it was pretty weird when the ranger on duty who collected our entry fee had clearly never even heard of the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail. The best he could do was to rummage around under the counter, and offer us a generic Florida bird checklist pamphlet.
That aside, the park is very nice. The boardwalks and restrooms are first rate, wildlife is abundant, and the views are pretty good (except when you look towards the eyesore highrise condos offshore). All of it might not be as nice if there were lots of people using the park though.

Yep, we have camped here twice and we love it here. It was nice and quiet on both occasions. The sunsets are awesome! We will camp here again.

An oasis of wilderness tucked amidst a wasteland of condos, housing developments, and commercial properties. You’ll scarcely find a patch of land anywhere near this park that doesn’t have something built on it, but, believe me, you can get lost in this place and feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. Not irrevocably lost to the point of panic, but it’s still not a good feeling.
Driving down Gulf Beach Highway, you’ll find Big Lagoon on the south side of the road, and it might surprise you. Nestled in between neighborhoods, this is 705 acres – slightly more than a square mile – of mostly white sand, pine trees, and wildlife. It is a beautiful park, although I imagine that it is oppressively hot during the summer months.
My hiking buddy and I recently went to hike the almost 5-​mile loop trail. It starts out well-​marked at the East Beach trailhead, but we had some problems on the walk. Definitely grab a map of the trail at the ranger station, although this will only give you a kindergarten-​style, crayola-​scribbled representation of reality.
There are many intersecting paths along the trail that are not actually part of the trail. In the twists and turns, you can’t always see the next marker, so these intersections present a Monty Hall moment of decision… and you won’t always be correct. The trail itself is wide, mostly, and you have vistas on some of the higher points.
We got to a bifurcation in the trail at one point where the footprints of past hikers ended. It had rained heavily the day before and at the spot that we were, there was no way to traverse the trail without trudging through calf-​deep mud and water. I’m not much into snakes and leeches and such, so we backtracked a bit and struck out on one of those alternate trails-that-aren’t-official-trails that I mentioned. We were lost. Not hopelessly lost, because we knew that we were bounded on all sides by civilization, but lost all the same. We wound up in a restricted area, at the Grand Poobah Ranger House, where mere mortals dare not tread. Scrooge that. Mark your trails better and provide some way to ford the seasonal swamps, folks.
You can rent a kayak down by the beach and sound, or hike inland and rent a canoe on one of the lagoons. Inquire at the ranger station about that. I think they provide the paddles when you pay, because we could have snatched a canoe and floated to Cuba… there was nobody around and the boats weren’t locked up or anything.
We saw one snake, lots of deer tracks, and had a pretty good time. It is a nice diversion from the teeming masses of humanity to get away from it all in a place like this. There are beaches, observation towers, a playground, campsites, etc. The park is close to grocery stores, shopping, and fast food joints, so you can come here and be away from it all, but have the convenience of modernity within a 5-​minute drive.
Worthy of consideration for both visitors and residents. It ain’t free, but it’s different. If you don’t have an annual pass for state parks ($ 25 for unlimited visits, last time that I checked), it’ll cost you $ 4 for one person, $ 6 for two, and more for additional peeps. Stuff ‘em in the trunk and feel smug about getting over on the man, if you must. That’s probably a felony, but small victories are sometimes all that we have. Just sayin’…

We lived across the hwy from Big Lagoon and loved to go walking on the trail. There are alligators so watch your small doggies. We brought ours and everything was fine. Little boys were fishing and families picnicking most weekends. Just a lovely setting.

Big Lagoon State Park is absolutely breathtaking and the boyfriend and I would definitely come back if we ever happen to be in the area again. We were just passing through heading to Texas and needed a place to sleep for the night with day activities. Luckily this place had kayak rentals so we rented a tandem for $ 25 for about 4 hours. Not bad.
Be sure to stay out of Intercoastal Waterway and ask the clerk for any other warnings. She mentioned that there were harmless sharks around, but that didn’t stop us from exploring the shores. We saw hermit crabs & fish – I was really psyched about the hermit crabs. People were even fishing & relaxing far out into the lagoon right before you hit the deep area so there’s really nothing to be afraid of.
Restrooms were clean except for a few harmless spiders and be forewarned… the raccoons are brilliant at opening ice chests, so hide your food! We lost our hamburger patties and bacon because we failed at reading the warning signs in the front office.
Picnic areas have a nice view of the Big Lagoon, but if you want a better view of the park check out the observation tower.
This park definitely has a lot to offer and it’s really peaceful. I want to come back to check out the hiking/​birding trails.

What a well kept secret! The day my family and I went out to Big Lagoon State Park, we were the only people there. We had free run of the park and all of its facilities. It’s such a beautiful place that I found it hard to take a bad picture, no matter how I tried.