Naturist Backpacking on the Ocala Trail

The Ocala Trail was the first portion of the Florida Trail System to be completed. It extends from the south end of the forest to the north end. The trail is marked with orange blazes on trees or posts. Maps are obtainable through the Forest Service or the Florida Trail Association.

The National Forest is managed as multi-use. Besides hiking and camping, there is also hunting, fishing, clear-cut logging, horse riding, and off-road vehicles. Most of these other activities take place along the roads, and there is quite a network of roads there.

If you want to be able to hike and camp naked, I strongly recommend three things:
1 Get away from the roads as much as practical. If you can drive to a campsite, so can everyone else.
2 Go on week days rather than weekends whenever possible. (Most car campers, horse riders, and off-road enthusiasts are "weekend warriors")
3 Go between May and just before hunting season starts in September. Few folks camp in the Ocala Forest during the warmer months.

If you hike the whole trail, you will cross roads frequently. You will need some kind of quick and easy cover-up. Probably the simplest would be a large towel.

Besides road crossings, you will also pass through several recreation areas. Again, you will need a handy cover-up.

Of the entire Ocala Forest, I would most strongly recommend the Juniper Prarie Wilderness area for naturist camping and hiking. This is a designated vehicle-free area. Access is by foot only. The few people I have met while hiking there seemed accepting enough of me hiking naked. No one has complained or asked me to cover up. Most have seemed amused. One man seemed mildly annoyed, and just said "Yep" as we passed.

Generally speaking, I would not recommend the Ocala Trail for novice hikers. Get some day hikes in first and get some experience under your belt (so to speak). While the flat Florida terrain may seem easy and unchallenging, inadequately prepared people have died on this trail. Around Christmas several years ago, I met a hiker from Miami hiking in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness area who was clearly ill-equipped for wilderness hiking. I strongly recommended he scale back his hiking plans, but he didn't. I heard a couple of months later a hiker's remains had been found in the general area.

Most of the Forest is risky for hiking during hunting season. It's way more risky hiking in bare skin during hunting season. Human skin and deer hide don't look all that different from a distance. Hunting is prohibited in the Wilderness Area, but for that very reason you will find that area heavily populated with textile hikers and campers during the cooler hunting-season months.


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