Maps & Navigation

Infrequent Blazes

The FT is not fully blazed along its entire length, particularly on road walks. Even where the trail is blazed, sometimes the blazes are just far enough apart to make you doubt you are still on the Trail. "I haven't seen a blaze in ten minutes...."

Inconsistent Colors for Blazes

On the Appalachian Trail, the main trail is marked with white blazes and all connecting or intersecting trails are marked with blue blazes. It is pretty simple to know whether you've made a wrong turn or not—if the blazes are blue, you're off the trail. The Florida Trail is marked with orange blazes, and some of the side trails are blazed blue, but then other side trails are also blazed in white, or yellow, red, and more.

Red Lichen Looks Like Faded Blazes

A species of reddish lichen called Cryptothecia rubrocincta grows on trees in Florida. It can often look like an old, faded, or damaged blaze and cause confusion. As we mention on the forest fires page, Florida wild lands are regularly subject to forest fires, both natural and intentionally set. These fires damage and destroy trail blazes, and it takes time after a fire before a trail crew may re-blaze a stretch of trail.

Lack of Detail & Imprecise Depictions on Maps

The FTA maps do not always include every detail. For example, in the Ocala National Forest there are a lot of ATV trails (many illegal), fire access roads, and logging roads that crisscrossing the forest. The Ocala map does not depict every single one of these roads. This creates confusion when you need to say, follow a fire access road to a campground to get water and come across a road(s) not on the map. You might turn onto the wrong road or become confused and think you missed the turn when it is still farther up the trail.

The data book has more of these landmarks than the maps, and so while on-trail you should cross reference the map with the data book.

Sometimes, the Trail Vanishes

Wild boar tear up the earth and often seem to do so along the trail corridor. Maybe because the trail is already cleared of brush it's easier for them to root there. In any case, once boar have torn up the land, weeds like Caesar weed quickly grow in the disturbed soil, obscuring the footpath.

Seasonal Wetlands

Many of Florida's ecosystems, including the entire Everglades and the huge Lake Kissimmee, have adapted to a two-season cycle of wet and dry, rather than four seasons. During the winter months the land dries out and lakes recede, only to then flood again in the summer.

Maps tend not to make a distinction between whether a wetland is seasonal or year-round. The maps simply show wetland. So how will you know whether you are going to walk on dry ground or slog through a swamp? Typically, if an area is labeled as a prairie that means it is a seasonal wetland and will be flooded in the summer.

Additional features let you send your location to people via text message, email, facebook or Twitter.

Our Complaints:  Maps do not come pre-loaded and you have to download them yourself manually. While they're free, it's still annoying. Also, while the initial download is free, it only comes loaded with the 43.5-mile Blackwater spur between the town of Harold and the Florida-Alabama border, which is not the main trail. You have to purchase the actual trail piece-by-piece or get the entire thing in one download for $35, which is called the "thru-hiker special." 

We don't think GPS units should be brought on a thru-hike — it's hard to justify the weight. In addition, since so many hikers are bringing smartphones, it is redundant to carry both a GPS unit and a smartphone. A smartphone's GPS function works even when the phone does not register any bars, so a smartphone will suffice.

If you decide to bring a GPS unit, keep in mind that they have batteries that die, software that crashes, watertight designs that fail, and a propensity to sink if they fall into lakes. Do not rely solely on it to navigate and use it in tandem with your old-fashioned paper maps and the data book. Finally, be proficient with your particular unit before starting your trek.

GPS Waypoint Data

If you are going to use a GPS then you will need to program your unit with waypoints of every possible landmark, campsite, resupply point, fresh water source, et cetera. There are two sources of GPS data: 

1)  If you purchase the Florida Trail Guide by Friend & Keatley, it includes GPS coordinates for some, but not all, waypoints.

2)  The National Forest Service has also provided four different .kmz files for use in Google Earth and handheld GPS units.

• Official Florida National Scenic Trail
• Designated Campsites
• Designated Trailheads
• Unofficial Connectors

File Formats

While it's becoming less likely, your GPS unit may not read .kmz files. If that is the case, you can use free software to convert from .kmz to the GPX format or the proprietary format required by your particular GPS unit. Three good programs (among others) are:

• GPSBabel
  
• GPSVisualizer
  
• ExpertGPS