Ravine Garden State Park: A Central Florida Hidden Gem

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I’m not sure how we decided to visit Ravine Gardens State Park, but it’s one of the places I went with my parents when they were visiting.

We made a day trip out of it and started here then went to St. Johns Botanical Garden after, and I really liked both stops!

The first impression wasn’t the best because the fountain was empty but that was quickly forgotten once we hit the trail.

There were a lot of blooming flowers around the fountain on the way to the main trail though, and those were beautiful.

From there, we went down the stairs and hit the trail! There are two trails here (the perimeter loop and azalea trail) and I think we kind of combined them.

There is a creek that runs through the park and the trails cross over it, taking you up and down both sides of the ravine.

The trails are a little confusing, I don’t think they were super well marked, but they pretty much all connect and intertwine so it wasn’t too annoying.

The trails are all packed dirt, lined with palms and ferns, with occasional views of the water below.

We started off going to the right of the main entrance area on the same side of the creek as the parking area.

We went about halfway down that direction, went down to the bottom, then crossed and went up, making a loop at the end, ending back up to make an almost figure 8.

Here is my activity recording on AllTrails. We started at the green dot and the figure 8 is the part on the left looking at this.

Once we finished the small loop at the end, we went up the opposite side of the creek.

Before we knew it, we had to decide if we wanted to call it quits or continue on in the other direction (left from where we started, right on the map).

We decided to keep going and this is where we ended up doing more back tracking.

There is a bridge going over the creek on this side and we went over it twice, once early then again on our way back at the end.

All the way at the end of this loop there is a little pond which was a nice view looking in the direction where the trails are.

We saw a few mushrooms along the trail, but not a ton. There were some small flowers along the way, too, but I’m not sure what they were.

It wasn’t super busy when we were here but we did still see a good number of people at various points along the trail.

None of it was packed by any means, but we were far from the only people there.

This was a really fun trail with lots of ups and downs, stairs, bridges, and water.

I’m really glad we decided to come here, whatever the reason was. It’s a great park I’d go back to if I was in the area.

It’s not particularly close to a lot of places most visitors would go, so it’s more of a day trip location but it’s worth a couple of hours to see.

I took SO many pictures here, they’re obviously throughout the post as usual, but there’s a huge gallery at the end, too.

Travel Services I Recommend:
AllTrails – This is my favorite hike tracking app.
America the Beautiful – The national park pass is essential.
Booking.com – This is great for finding and booking hotels.
Get Your Guide – I recommend Get Your Guide for booking tours.
National Park Obsessed – This is the best national park planner.
Skyscanner – Skyscanner is great for finding and booking flights.
Enterprise – This is my rental car recommendation.
See all my resources here.

Where is Ravine Gardens State Park?

Ravine Gardens State Park is kind of on the southeast edge of Palatka, on the west side of the St. Johns River and north of the Horseshoe Point Conservation Area.

It’s about 45 minutes from St. Augustine, just under an hour from Gainesville, just over an hour from Jacksonville, 1.5 hours from High Springs, and almost two hours from Fernandina Beach.

How long is the hike at Ravine Gardens State Park?

AllTrails tracked us at 1.54 miles with an hour of hiking, though it felt much longer time-wise than that!

I think we basically combined the perimeter loop and azalea trail which are 1.9 and 1.54 miles, respectively.

Is the hiking at Ravine Gardens State Park hard?

Nope! While it isn’t flat like most hikes in Florida, it’s not difficult. The elevation isn’t crazy and it’s spread out.

It tracked 102 feet of elevation. Navigating is probably the most difficult part but it all connects anyway.

Is visiting Ravine Gardens State Park worth it?

Yes! This isn’t super close to anything really, so it kind of has to be it’s own trip but it’s a beautiful park and definitely worth making it into a day trip.