The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, a new agency created in 1993 through the merger of the Florida Department of Natural Resources and the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation, manages approximately 100 sites, totaling nearly 400,000 acres. Most of these are open to the public and are visited by almost 14 million people annually. Many of these parks are open to campers.
The state's most popular recreational site is John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which attracts well over 1 million visitors each year, over twice as many as the next most popular recreational site, Honeymoon Island in Pinellas County. Pennekamp is almost entirely underwater and is extremely popular with snorklers and scuba divers. "Trails" have been marked with plaques describing the natural environment for the diver.
The state owns many pre-Columbian archaeologicalÊsites as well as historical sites, including the Lake Jackson Temple Mounds, San Marcos de Apalachee, New Smyrna Sugar Mill, Kingsley Plantation, Dade Battlefield from the Second Seminole War, and Olustee and Natural Bridge battle sites from the Civil War. In the late 1980s the state purchased the grade of Florida's second railroad line, which ran from Tallahassee to St. Marks, and converted it into a bicycle trail.
Florida's most popular recreational sites are visited most frequently during the spring and summer. Maclay State Gardens in Tallahassee has the most visitors in March, when its camellias and azaleas are in bloom.
