Bark Ranger Maisy’s GRAND SOUTHEASTERN TOUR JUNE 2024: Canaveral National Seashore, FL

NPS Unit count: 78

Hey there fellow Adventurers! If you have a dog, enjoy the national parks, and want to make great memories with your Bark Ranger(s), please join our now 35,000 member community! I am proud to share that #USBarkRangers is now an affiliate with both AllTrails and GuideAlong (formerly the Gypsy Guide)!! If you click on those links, AllTrails will give you a free trial, and GuideAlong will discount 15 percent off any tour, INCLUDING those on sale, and their bundled packages as well! Check out the shot below of our interactive map! We are now actively compiling US Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, Forestry Service, AND state and local/county/city park systems that offer Bark Ranger programs into our map! Clicking on the sites brings up the info we have that is as most up to date as we can find! Additionally USBarkRangers is active on IG @USBarkRangers and Maisy has an IG also @BarkRangerMaisy!

In an effort to actually, you know…upload posts or something, for a weird change of pace, I am going to do a time jump. I am actively working on Death Valley, and still have Tennessee/Great Smoky Mountains, both of which happened before this roadtrip, and then Glacier, and Wrangell St. Elias National Parks afterwards. In the meantime my new Bark Ranger baby Miss Maisy Daisy got to explore many national park sites in the southeast, including many that have Bark Ranger programs or Bark Ranger badges! All of them had some pretty dog friendly rules, of course, so we had a blast! This will be a lengthy series of posts, and thankfully they are already mostly done, so expect to see a good amount of posts coming soon! I will keep my NPS unit count correct, as best I can!

Our first stop took us to a very windy and rainy Canaveral National Seashore in Florida. This site does NOT have anything Bark Ranger, but is very dog friendly! I found no rangers, so I spoke to the lady running the small bookstore and left some of our cards. The short and easy rule here is that dogs are not allowed on the Atlantic side of the road but they are allowed on the other side of the road along the lagoon. The biggest site to see on the lagoon side is the Eldora Village State House. The house dates back more than 100 years when there used to be a village there. This is possibly a museum to visit, but it was not open when I was there, and it was not clear about hours or anything like that.

The website says dogs are not allowed on “beaches or boardwalks” in one paragraph, but then says in another paragraph where they are allowed – which says the lagoon side and specifies locations. There is a boardwalk on the lagoon side, specifically at one of the listed locations. There were no signs indicating pet allowance either way at that location, so it’s unclear to me what the rule is there.

There a a few other things to point out for Canaveral National Seashore. When driving, watch out for gopher tortoises! We saw a few hanging around the side of the road. The beaches look pristine, but bear in mind that this is the Atlantic side, which is absolutely the least scenic of the 3 Florida beach environments. There is a marked nude area in this unit as well! Canaveral looks easy to get to on the map, and is, but it actually takes a decent amount of time to get to off of the highway. Lastly, there is another section of the Seashore that is accessed nowhere near this area. Where I went is the “main” section, with the visitor center accessed through New Smyrna Beach. However, if you go through Titusville and NASA land you can access an area called Playalinda. We did not go to this area, and there are a fair amount of launches now, so be sure to check that its accessible!

Thanks for reading, next up will be nearby Ft. Matanzas!