By Ashley Gibbins on Wednesday, 22 July 2020
Category: North America

Budget-friendly remote Florida

Westgate River Ranch Resort & Rodeo

The Westgate River Ranch Resort & Rodeo, in Central Florida, offers the chance to camp-out in a tepee.

The glamping experience offers American-themed decor complete with a double-sided stone rock hearth fireplace, cowhide furnishings, a porcelain cast iron claw bathtub and access to the resort's 1,700-acre dude ranch.

Guests can arrange tickets to the Westgate Rodeo, pony rides and swamp buggy rides.

www.westgateresorts.com

Green Cove Springs

Green Cove Springs is Camp Chowenwaw Park, just south of Jacksonville.

Originally a Girl Scout camp in the 1930s, this nature-rich park offers guests the chance to spot bald eagles along the hiking trails and canoe alongside manatees as they paddle on the river.

The park has nine screened treehouse structures, each sleeping four people and kitted with bunkbeds.

www.claycountygov.com/departments/parks-and-recreation/camp-chowenwaw-park

Katie's Kaboose

Katie's Kaboose is located at Coldwater Creek in Pensacola on the Alabama-Florida border.

It is a converted freight train carriage, complete with a mini kitchen, small shower and full-size bed.

Outside is a charcoal grill, fire pit and a hammock.

Secluded cabins, stilted lodges and camping are also available. During the day, guests can take a zipline canopy tour across the creek or tube down the crystal-clear streams through the Blackwater River State Forest.

www.adventuresunlimited.com

Trail Lakes Campground

Trail Lakes Campground is located in the heart of the Big Cypress Western Everglades.

The campground provides a chickee hut glamping experience in chickee huts made by local Seminole native Americans.

Whilst the thatched chickees are rustic with no water or electricity, they are situated by the campground wash facilities.

www.evergladescamping.net

Chickee huts in the Everglades

This BYOT (bring your own tent) experience lets experienced adventurers navigate their way through the mangroves by kayak to one of the chickee sites that are dotted throughout the Everglades.

Chickee huts are sheltered camping platforms used where dry land is inaccessible - it's a man-made miniature island in the open water of a mangrove swamp.

www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/wilderness-trip-planner.htm

Jules' Undersea Lodge

Jules' Undersea Lodge is the only submerged recreational hotel in the USA.

The lodge (opened in 1986) is located at Key Largo Undersea Park and its entrance is 21 feet beneath the surface.

It features two bedrooms and can comfortably host a maximum of six scuba-certified guests.

Guests can order fresh local pizza or choose gourmet meal options of filet and Florida lobster and homemade Key lime pie.

www.jul.com

Useful links

www.VISITFLORIDA.com