Where can you ride ATVs near Fort Myers?

The closest legal riding is Redneck Mud Park in Punta Gorda, roughly an hour north, followed by the ORV trails inside Big Cypress National Preserve to the east. Everything else worth towing to — Croom and the Ocala National Forest — is three to four hours north.

Are there ATV trails in Naples or Collier County?

Collier County runs no public OHV trail system of its own. The closest legal riding is the designated ORV trail network in Big Cypress National Preserve, east of Naples, which requires a $100 per-vehicle permit bought through Recreation.gov and valid until January 31 of the following year.

How much is the Big Cypress ORV permit?

It is $100.00 at the time of sale, per vehicle, and it runs from the purchase date until January 31 of the following year. Permits are vehicle-specific, non-transferable, and non-refundable, and the machine must be 4x4 capable.

Can you ride an ATV on the beach in Florida?

Not as a recreational rider. Section 316.2074 bars ATVs from public roads, streets, and highways except as the managing agency permits, and the beach carve-outs written into it are for law enforcement traffic duty, not for the public.

Do you need a permit to ride in the Ocala National Forest?

Yes. The Forest Service sells OHV passes for its Florida trail systems through Recreation.gov at $10 for three days, $25 for seven days, or $75 annually, per person, and requires a spark arrestor plus a copy of your Florida OHV paperwork on the trail.

SWFL Local · The Trailhead

Where to Ride an ATV, UTV, or Dirt Bike in Southwest Florida (and How Far You Will Drive)

Southwest Florida has almost no public riding and a lot of confident misinformation about it. Here is what is actually open, what it costs, and how long the tow is.

By The Outpost CrewUpdated 2026-09-036 min read

Honda at Power Lodge →Yamaha at Power Lodge →Kawasaki at Power Lodge →Can-Am at Power Lodge →CFMOTO at Power Lodge →

Standing tea-coloured water running back through bare cypress trunks hung with airplants and Spanish moss in Big Cypress National Preserve. — NPS photo (public domain)

The honest version: Southwest Florida has almost nowhere public to ride, and the good stuff is a tow away. There is no county trail system in Lee or Collier, no legal beach riding, and no road exception that covers a side-by-side. What there is: one mud park an hour up the interstate, a national preserve east of Naples that will sell you a permit, and two genuinely good trail systems three to four hours north.

That is four places, all verified against their own official pages as of September 2026. Everything below has a fee, an hours window, or a permit attached, and we have listed what each one publishes rather than what a 2018 forum post remembers. Prices and dates move, so treat the venue’s own page as the tiebreaker on the morning you go.

The close one: Redneck Mud Park, Punta Gorda

About an hour north. The park’s own site lists it at 44570 Bermont Rd, Punta Gorda, and says it is open every weekend, with day passes sold at the gate, cash only. Camping is on site with limited hookups; showers require a pass.

The park runs on a calendar of big event weekends — five are published for 2026–27, from Parrot Palooza over Labor Day weekend, September 4–7, 2026 through the Spring Break Takeover in March 2027. Plan around one or avoid them all, depending on your appetite for a crowd and a concert.

Who it suits, and what to bring

This is mud, not trail. Deep, opaque, radiator-filling Florida mud with a crowd around it. It rewards a snorkeled machine with a winch and big tires and punishes a stock utility quad with a low intake. Bring cash for the gate, water, and a recovery strap you are not sentimental about. Our first-timer’s guide to Redneck Mud Park has the full event calendar, the camping logistics, and the prep in detail, and the machines built for it — Can-Am’s X MR trims, chiefly — are the subject of setting up a UTV for Florida mud and sand.

The local one: Big Cypress National Preserve

About 90 minutes east, out the Tamiami Trail past the Collier line. Big Cypress is the only legal off-road riding of any size in our own backyard, and it runs on a permit system that is stricter than most people expect.

A dense stand of pond cypress with flared buttressed trunks and clumps of bromeliads, standing in shallow dark water in Big Cypress National Preserve. — Pond cypress in a Big Cypress slough. Water depth here swings by feet between the wet and dry season, and the trail access swings with it. — Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The permit, exactly

Every ORV needs its own permit, sold through Recreation.gov at $100.00 at the time of sale. It is valid from the purchase date until January 31 of the following year, it is vehicle-specific and non-transferable, and it is non-refundable once bought. The permit covers UTVs, ATVs, swamp buggies, street-legal vehicles (Bear Island Unit only), and airboats. Two conditions catch people out: the machine must be 4x4 capable to be permitted, and motorcycles and other two-wheeled vehicles are not permitted in the backcountry at all.

The rules in force

The Preserve’s ORV use page (accessed September 2026) is short and absolute. Trails are open 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. only. Access ORV trails by the designated gates, and close and lock them behind you. Stay on designated trails. Operate at the posted speed. Every ORV must meet the inspection requirements in the Superintendent’s Compendium, and you are responsible for conducting your own inspection — nobody does it for you at a booth. Every operator must hold a valid state-issued driver license, and proof of permit has to be on you while you ride.

We have walked the permit purchase and the self-inspection step by step in the Big Cypress ORV permit guide.

The trail day: Croom Motorcycle Area, Brooksville

About three hours north, inside the Withlacoochee State Forest. Croom is 2,600 acres designated for ATV and motorcycle trail riding, and the Florida Forest Service prices it at $15 for a day pass and $80.01 for an annual pass.

It is the closest thing to a real trail system that a Southwest Florida rider can reach and return from in a long day. Sand, pine, elevation changes that qualify as mountains by Florida standards, and a layout built for quads and dirt bikes rather than for wide six-seaters — check the machine’s width against the trail designation before you tow three hours.

The big one: Ocala National Forest

About four hours north, and the largest OHV opportunity in the state. The Forest Service counts nearly 300 miles of trail across the Florida national forests, with the named Ocala systems being the Ocala Centennial Trail (47 miles), the Delancy Loops (16 miles), the Hog Valley OHV Trail (13 miles), and a 14-mile Motorcycle Loop that is motorcycles only. The others accommodate motorcycles, ATVs, and UTVs.

Open Florida pine flatwoods: widely spaced slash pines over wiregrass and saw palmetto under a partly clouded sky. — Pine flatwoods and saw palmetto — the dry-ground half of Florida riding. (Photographed at a natural area on Florida's east coast; the community is the same statewide.) — Scott Zona, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Passes and requirements

OHV passes are sold through Recreation.gov at $10 for a 3-day pass, $25 for a 7-day pass, and $75 for an annual pass, per person.

Three requirements travel with you: a Forest Service-approved spark arrestor is required, riders must possess a copy of a Florida OHV registration and identification — bring your title paperwork and your ID — and riders under 16 must wear a helmet and must pass an online OHV safety course.

What is not on this list, and why

Public roads. Florida bars off-highway vehicles from public roads, streets, and highways. The single exception in § 316.2123, Fla. Stat. (2026) is a narrow, ATV-only allowance for daylight use on slower unpaved roads, subject to county opt-out — it does not cover side-by-sides. The full breakdown, condition by condition, is on are UTVs street legal in Florida.

Lazy Springs. It appears on every stale listicle about Florida mud parks. Its web domain no longer resolves, we could not confirm from any official source that it is operating in 2026, and we are not going to send you towing on a maybe. Call ahead or skip it.

Beaches, canal banks, and the empty lot behind the new subdivision. No, no, and that is somebody’s property.

Before you go

Title in hand or a copy in the truck. Public land means paperwork; see Florida OHV titles and registration.
Permit bought in advance for Big Cypress and Ocala — both are online purchases, not gate sales. Redneck is the opposite: cash, at the gate.
Check the width. Some designated trails are cut for quads and dirt bikes, not for a 65-inch six-seater.
Spark arrestor on anything going into a national forest.
Water, then more water. Nothing on this list has shade you can count on, and the afternoon storm arrives whether or not you brought a rain jacket.
Fuel before you leave the interstate. Bermont Road and the Tamiami Trail east of Naples are not full of gas stations.
Leave a margin on daylight. Loading a muddy machine onto a trailer after dark in a wet field is how straps, ramps, and tempers get lost.

Where to go next

If this list has convinced you the machine is the constraint rather than the map, the two pages worth reading are our ATV versus UTV buyer’s guide and the reviews behind it — the CFMOTO CFORCE 600 for a narrow, capable quad with a factory winch (2026 units listed at $6,799 and up as of September 2026), and the Honda Pioneer 700 for a work side-by-side that will not eat a belt in standing water. Everything on the floor is 20 minutes from the interstate ramp in Bonita Springs.

See what is on the floor at Power Lodge →

ATVs and side-by-sides in stock now, with live pricing.

Quick answers

Where can you ride ATVs near Fort Myers?: The closest legal riding is Redneck Mud Park in Punta Gorda, roughly an hour north, followed by the ORV trails inside Big Cypress National Preserve to the east. Everything else worth towing to — Croom and the Ocala National Forest — is three to four hours north.
Are there ATV trails in Naples or Collier County?: Collier County runs no public OHV trail system of its own. The closest legal riding is the designated ORV trail network in Big Cypress National Preserve, east of Naples, which requires a $100 per-vehicle permit bought through Recreation.gov and valid until January 31 of the following year.
How much is the Big Cypress ORV permit?: It is $100.00 at the time of sale, per vehicle, and it runs from the purchase date until January 31 of the following year. Permits are vehicle-specific, non-transferable, and non-refundable, and the machine must be 4x4 capable.
Can you ride an ATV on the beach in Florida?: Not as a recreational rider. Section 316.2074 bars ATVs from public roads, streets, and highways except as the managing agency permits, and the beach carve-outs written into it are for law enforcement traffic duty, not for the public.
Do you need a permit to ride in the Ocala National Forest?: Yes. The Forest Service sells OHV passes for its Florida trail systems through Recreation.gov at $10 for three days, $25 for seven days, or $75 annually, per person, and requires a spark arrestor plus a copy of your Florida OHV paperwork on the trail.