Orlando Wetlands — Attraction in Titusville

Lots of great facilities including educational information kiosks, pavilions with picnic benches, restrooms, the boardwalk, and wildlife viewing trails. Even when the parking lot is crowded, there seems to be plenty of room for everyone to be spread out across the property. The location is quite a ways away from actual Orlando, but that’s necessary to have the space for all of the great wildlife habitat they built here. Photographers with impressive, expensive equipment, families with young kids, small groups with binoculars, bike riders, and all sorts of folks enjoy the plentiful birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other critters.

Some areas of the trails are relatively narrow, unpaved spots that go for long stretches without any shade or place to sit. Be sure to wear sun protection and bring plenty of water.

We tried the hiking trail at the east side of the park, and I truly cannot recommend it. The map shows it as a relatively brief, straight line through forested habitat. We entered the trail at the north, where the bridges are, thinking it would be a neat way to get back toward the entrance. This was the least enjoyable part of the visit. The trail is not very well-maintained and is full of wild boar damage, creating muddy craters that breed mosquitos and slow down your pace so you can make sure there are no snakes in your path. There were a few wooden bridges that seemed a bit precarious, and the tail went on and on for so long that we thought we’d somehow gotten lost or took a wrong turn. Eventually, when we found the way out, we saw a sign that said the hiking trail would take 35 minutes. That heads up would’ve been nice at the other entrance! There were still some beautiful old oak trees full of air plants as well as native orchids and flowers along the way, so I’m glad we tried it; but I definitely won’t plan to take that route again.

All in all, this park is absolutely worth the detour from Orlando and may be the place that you see some cool wildlife for the first time! For us, this park was the first place we saw neat birds like roseate spoonbills, purple galinules, belted kingfishers, and the famed vermilion flycatcher. You may find somewhat similar experiences at Apopka wildlife drive and the merrit island wildlife drive in terms of wetland habitats, but this park has nice amenities and doesn’t...

Always a beautiful place to hike! It was really busy today; the parking lot was almost full when we arrived at 7:50am. Some people were already parking at the additional lot across the street.

There is a covered pavilion with many picnic tables, including at least one that is wheelchair accessible. The bathrooms are right next to the pavilion.

If you walk around the outer loop of trails it's something like 7+ miles, but there are so many trail options that it's easy to tailor a hike to whatever length you prefer. If you go to the section of trail that runs parallel to the northern border of the Wetlands (crossing over a small bridge) you can access the Florida Trail. A small set of stairs allow hikers to cross over the dividing fence.

Almost all of the trails here are wide (at least 8 feet-ish) and in full sun year round. (There is one shaded section in the northeast corner that cuts through woods and is often muddy.)

The sunny trails are lovely in the cooler months, and still tolerable early in the day during the summer. (The picture I posted surrounded by trees is part of the connecting Florida Trail just north of the Wetlands.)

It's a great place for bird watching and photography. Almost every time I visit I see gators, great blue herons, coots, ibis, cormorants, vultures, and turtles...along with a bunch of other birds that I don't know the names for. 🙂 No dogs are allowed.

The new visitor's center looks like it's nearing completion, which is pretty exciting! And if you call the current visitor's center ahead of time you can set up a...

This is my second time visiting the Orlando Wet Land Park. The first time that I went with my friend as we parked the car a falcon flew down and caught a lizard. He looked at us and flew upto a tree with his lizard. Along our hike we saw an Ibis, Gallinule, Heron, Anhinga and a rabbit. We heard gators but didn't see any. This second time we saw a falcon up on a tree Lim and he was just watching us and we were quiet and were able to take pictures and a short video of the falcon. We saw a Limpkin and I took a picture of it and a few other birds like the Falcon, vulutre, Heron, Ibis, Anhinga, Gallinule and an alligator. We heard baby gators crying by some Cattails and Purple Pickerel by the bank and decided to turn around because we figured that mama gator was close by. We even saw some deer tracks. It is a great place to visit if you like to hike and love nature. Before you go on your hike there are some displays of different birds, turtles etc. A lot of informative pamphlets. There is also restrooms and covered picnic tables. If you love photographing nature and birds, I defiantly recommend visiting this park. You can also visit Christmas Park before going to the Wet lands or after. You might even see some turtles on the road. Christmas Park is a very educational place to visit and learn about Florida. It also has covered picnic areas and a small play ground for children. There is also chickens in...