\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Central Florida is commonly associated with\u00a0theme parks,\u00a0and the ever-famous\u00a0Walt Disney World Resort\u00a0\u2014 plus its primary mascots, Mickey and Minnie Mouse \u2014 are synonymous with the region.\u00a0Theme parks and other entertainment-based attractions have made this part of the Sunshine State a common\u00a0destination for international tourists. However, many visitors miss out on the forests and wetlands that\u00a0take up\u00a0a significant portion of Central Florida’s landscape. If you’re looking for a natural escape from the theme park crowds far from Orlando’s tourism corridor, you can make your way to a path that takes cyclists and hikers alike along a historic railway corridor: the East Central Regional Rail Trail<\/a>.<\/p>\n Spanning just\u00a0over 50 miles, the trail takes visitors through Central Florida’s rural and suburban areas, winding through forests and wetlands from\u00a0Deltona\u00a0toward the city of Titusville on Florida’s Space Coast. The East Central Regional Rail Trail began as a railroad line for transporting goods and passengers along the Florida East Coast Railway. After the railway was closed and abandoned in the 1970s\u00a0\u2014 and after most of its tracks were removed \u2014 the state of Florida purchased the corridor in 2007 before leasing it to the counties of\u00a0Volusia and Brevard.\u00a0The two counties began transforming the former railroad corridor into a hike-and-bike “rail trail.” The first portion of East Central Regional Rail Trail was completed\u00a0after 14 years of construction, and today, a majority of the trail is\u00a0part of the broader\u00a0Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail<\/a>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Hike or cycle through forests and wetlands along the East Central Regional Rail Trail<\/p>\n The East Central Regional Rail Trail\u00a0begins\u00a0in Deltona at Green Springs Park<\/a>, a 31-acre park nearly 30 miles north of Orlando that’s home to one of Florida’s only green sulfur springs. West\u00a0of the park, the trail continues as the Spring-to-Spring Trail, a 25.7-mile paved trail that runs north from Deltona\u00a0to De\u00a0Leon Springs State Park, a scenic spring retreat that lies between\u00a0Orlando and St. Augustine<\/a>. Heading east from Green Springs Park, hikers and bikers traverse a stretch of forest before reaching the small town of Osteen. The segment between Deltona and Osteen was the very\u00a0first to open to the public in 2011.\u00a0Volusia County also\u00a0built a large bridge\u00a0on this segment of the trail to carry foot and bike traffic over State Road 415.<\/p>\n After leaving Osteen, the trail cuts through the\u00a0Farmton Wildlife Management Area, a 59,000-acre\u00a0plot of protected woodlands that sprawl across Volusia County. Within the wildlife area lies Maytown, an unincorporated community that was once a junction for the old Florida East Coast Railway.\u00a0The town now connects to a spur route\u00a0that heads north, paralleling Interstate 95 and ending in\u00a0New Smyrna Beach, a wildly popular destination in Florida<\/a>. Staying on the main trail, the East Central Regional Rail Trail crosses Interstate 95 and enters Brevard County. The trail also passes through the county’s northern communities; after crossing the Indian River, it ends at Parrish Park in Titusville, next to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n If you’re looking for another hike-and-bike trail repurposed from abandoned infrastructure, head north of Orlando toward the\u00a0Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway, a world-class biking and paddling trail<\/a> that traverses the route of a failed canal barge project. Alternatively, if you want to stay closer to Orlando, consider exploring the trails at Seminole State Forest, a scenic and peaceful escape for camping and fishing<\/a>\u00a0that ranks among Central Florida’s hidden gems of nature.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Central Florida is commonly associated with\u00a0theme parks,\u00a0and the ever-famous\u00a0Walt Disney World Resort\u00a0\u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-360082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}