Who's Visiting The Florida Trail?

Who’s Visiting the Florida Trail?

by Kelly Van Patten, Trail Program Director hikers about their experience on the trail, many of them reminisce about long stretches of time that they never saw another person. For many, the solitude of the Florida Trail is part of what makes it an attractive hike. It allows hikers to escape and reflect while immersed in some of Florida’s most beautiful landscapes. Given the solitude most hikers experience, you may be surprised to learn that over 337,000 people set foot on the Florida Trail every year. When I share this information, the next question one often asks is, “How do you calculate that!?” The Ecotourism and Recreation Lab at the University of Florida (UF), in partnership with the US Forest Service, has been studying visitation on the Florida Trail since 2003. The purpose of this research is to continuously monitor visitor counts throughout the trail each year, and to gather trends in visitor characteristics. This research represents one of the only holistic visitor assessments on a National Scenic Trail in the country and is one of the longest running visitor assessment studies at 17 years and counting. The research has been of benefit to recreation professionals across the country, resulting in numerous research publications that help other institutions understand recreational visitor monitoring efforts on a large-scale trail. To conduct this research, the UF team installed infrared trail counters on trees or posts along the Florida Trail. To help increase the accuracy of the numbers across the trail, counter locations are changed each trail

Kotryna Klizentyte of UF installing a counter

When I talk to Florida Trail thruat Apalachicola National Forest season. Staff from UF, the Forest Service, or the FTA are assigned to visit each counter on a monthly basis to collect data and ensure that the counter is functioning properly. This year, the trail counter program has been expanded to include more locations than ever before. This expansion was made possible by a grant from our partners at REI, whose corporate leadership recognized the immense value of this research. REI’s Outdoor Places grant program invested $4,000 into the program, which allowed us to purchase and deploy three additional counters. As always, we are incredibly thankful for our continued partnership with REI and for their strong commitment to supporting the FTA and the Florida Trail. For the 20202021 season, counters will be placed at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Econfina WMA, Summer/Fall 2020 19

Taylor Henley of UF installing a counter at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve

St. Marks NWR, Triple N Ranch WMA, Split Oak Forest, Moss Park, Seminole State Forest, Withlacoochee State Forest and Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. The UF team also conducts exit surveys with hikers along the Florida Trail. The purpose of these surveys is to understand users in terms of their socio-demographic information, trip characteristics, motivations, and attitudes about management of the trail. This information helps us in many aspects of managing the trial, including targeting our marketing efforts, increasing diversity of users, and making decisions on appropriate trail routing and infrastructure. Visitor assessment and monitoring is important for decision-making in natural resource management, not only in terms of ecological impacts, but to promote social benefits related to outdoor recreation. Understanding the volume of users and their preferences allows land managers to better manage public lands to balance conservation of the ecosystem while managing for appropriate recreation use in the area. Visitation data is also useful in grant applications, funding allocation documents, and similar documents, which can help land managers obtain the resources they need to properly manage recreation and ecological factors. The data also helps us focus on facility maintenance and trailhead development in areas of most need or high use. Conversely, we can identify low use areas for enhanced focus. Visitation data is presented bi-annually to the Florida National Scenic Trail Coalition-- a diverse, representative sample of land management and agency partners dedicated to the development, maintenance, and promotion of the Florida Trail. The variety of organizations helps to ensure that a wide spectrum of land owners’ needs and recreationists' interests are considered in management decisions affecting the Florida National Scenic Trail. Additionally, having accurate data about the number of visitors using the Florida Trail is an important part of demonstrating the trail’s importance to the public. User counts are a crucial component of FTA’s outreach materials, and remain a key talking point referenced in congressional meetings during our “Hike the Hill” advocacy week. Having hard data that shows how our infrastructure, rehabilitation, and gap closure efforts have enabled access to outdoor recreation in Florida will greatly strengthen our efforts to advocate for the trail and gain resources to do more of this important work. As monitoring efforts continue over the coming years, we look forward to reviewing new data to assist in monitoring how FT visitation is changing as well as how the characteristics of trail visitors are changing. As a result, staff, land managers, and volunteers will be provided with information to assist them in creating and enhancing recreation along the Florida Trail.

INTERESTING HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 2018-2019 FLORIDA TRAIL VISITOR ASSESSMENT INCLUDE:

 An estimated 337,753 people set foot on the trail each year  In the 2018-2019 season, the most popular sections of the trail by foot traffic included Lake Okeechobee, the Cross Florida Greenway, Gulf Islands National Seashore and Little Big Econ State Forest.  Florida Trail users were mostly married (56%), with no children (64%), had a Bachelor’s degree (41%), were employed full time (60%), white (86%) and had an income between $30,000-60,000 (32%). The gender demographic was 49.6% split between male/female.  More than half of survey respondents (61%) were repeat visitors.  A majority of the respondents (81%) hiked one to five miles on the trail, and 6% of the respondents hiked five to ten miles on the trail.  About half of the respondents traveled in a group of two or three visitors, whereas 27% traveled alone and 10% traveled in a group of five or more visitors.  The top recreation motivation for users was experiencing nature and its aesthetics.  In choosing a place to hike, respondents overwhelmingly cited their desire for wilderness/undisturbed nature, and a location that is easy to access.  Users were most likely to know about the Florida Trail through word of mouth or living nearby.