State parks see increase in visitors

State parks across Florida saw nearly 300 thousand more visitors last year than they year before and visitor numbers were up at many local parks.

The Florida Park Service said more than 20.4 million visitors visited Florida’s 160 state parks during the last fiscal year, an increase of approximately 300,000 people from the previous year.

Its still a drop of about a million people from the record high between July 2008 and June 2009.

Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin welcomed more visitors than any other state park in Florida for the fifth year in a row, with more than 1.1 million visitors.

 St. Andrews State Park in Panama City Beach was the most popular park in north Florida with more than 770,000 guests.

Locally we saw over 192 thousand visitors at the St. George Island State park which was up from about 183 thousand the year before.

Bald Point State Park saw a big drop in visitors from 53 thousand people to just over 33 thousand.

The Orman House Historic State Park in Apalachicola brought in over 4800 people last year, the John Gorrie Museum State Park saw nearly 2500 guests.

In Gulf County the St. Joe Peninsula State Park saw a drop in their visitor numbers from 175 thousand people to 163 thousand and the Constitution Convention Museum saw a drop in visitors from over 2600 people to just under 2000.

The Ochlocknee River State Park in Wakulla County saw nearly 39 thousand visitors last year – up from over 33 thousand the year before.

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