Alafia River Corridor Nature Preserve - South

I love this Nature Preserve... My pup and I walk here often. There are several different trails and we see deer almost every time we go. There's a port-a-potty also, which is nice.

Very nice trail with shady areas and good footpaths covered with mostly cut grass and pine straw. However some areas are sandy and you do have some elevation changes to keep things interesting. Each of the campsites are large and two had fire rings but I did not see any potable water nearby, pack it in.

Had a great walk at this preserve. Things are pretty dry right now so we never stepped in any water at all, which from other reviews, sounds rare. Saw deer, a huge lone boar( who was thankfully running away from us), horses, cows, and a few donkeys. A good bit of the preserve runs parallel to some private farms and homes, but it still felt secluded. We walked 8 miles and did most of the trail sections minus a few that ran through the middle. The only reason I give it 4 stars rather than 5 is because there were a few places on the blue trail where we had to pull out the map to make sure we stayed on the correct part of the trail. I've found most of Hillsborough County parks to be impressively well marked and manicured, but this one a little less. We walked about 50 feet too far off the blue trail and didn't realize until we checked the map. Wouldn't be such a big deal but we were right next to some homes and we may have ended up on private property which I'd prefer not to do. The sign and map boards there were also not maintained as well as most in the county. One had no map or anything on it at all, just a blank board. The one at the front did have stuff on it but was pretty hard to see a clear trail map for some reason. Absolutely lovely park to walk through though. There is one port-o-potty at the front parking lot as well as a pavilion.

You will have wet feet, because you must cross over the chito branch tributary. There is a measuring stick so you can see how deep it is. It’s a cool trail with options as to how to loop your hike depending on desired distance. Big parking lot with porta-john. Keep dogs on leash as there are horses, wild pigs, deers, and tons of songbirds

This trail is not as scenic as the North trail but is good for exercise. My app indicated that I hiked 6.5 mile on the yellow and red trail. Of the three trails I had to cross, one of them required that I find a more narrow spot to cross up stream. I don't like wearing bug spray but there were some areas where I was tempted to pull it out. I did see wild pigs for the first time and lots of butterflies.