Torreya State Park

We enjoyed our stay here despite the lack of tree cover due to hurricane Michael last fall. Many of the trails are still closed but there are enough open to still enjoy yourself. We hiked down to see a waterfall. It was about an hour long round-trip .
The park rangers are very friendly and will be happy to share the history of the area with you.
Site #28 is a sand pad which I was not a fan of.
Our site was not cramped by neighboring sites and had a row of bushes in between them. Would definitely stay here again!

This state park just reopened 3/1/19 after hurricane Michael destroyed it in OCT. 2018. It is up on a hill and just about 90% of the trees have been cut down from the hurricane. Site was beach sand, that was just laid down. Electric and water, dump station just down the hill. Bath house was clean, two showers, and laundry available. Ranger station is an old house on site. Very quiet and peaceful with only 30 sites. Some sites, as ours was very close to the others. Not a lot of privacy. Firepits were about 10 feet from each other on the back of the site. Park is about a 30 minute drive off I-10, closest town is Bristol about a 20 minute drive.

Great place to relax. The silence is deafening took a little hike down to the small falls moderate to easy less than an hour round trip. If you’re up for excitement you won’t find it here, but a super place to relax. One tip and the reason for only 4 stars. There is a water hookup for every two sites. While you have your own connection, if you are in an odd numbered site, you’ll have to run your hose under or around your rig to get to the hookup. Solution here is to book an even numbered site.

Sites are dirt, with some growth between each other. Lots of woods surrounding.

Getting here requires some patience in a big rig. Lots of winding country roads.

Overall great place. Will come back.

Quiet and peaceful. Nice hikes and location of historical interest. Ranger was very helpful and informative when checking us in. Advised us to use flashlights as they have Copperheads- not a problem, but just be aware. Gates close at a certain time so contact park if you plan to arrive after hours. I wouldn't recommend this as a place to stay if just passing through on I-10 because the drive down from I-10 took probably 45 minutes. Two nights would have been a nice amount of time to explore the area, and more nights if you just want to relax in a nice place.

A very nice woodsy park, lots of birds, nice sites paved and leveled. Some shade, but not a lot of sites, a small campground. The bathhouse was inoperable due to a water issue, and the entire campground had to use the Disable persons bathroom (1) and shower. The park had a cabin, and a Yurt, the campground is near hiking trails, and Springs. Adjacent to the Apalachicola River, and fairly close to Panama City Beach. This park does not have Wi-Fi, and the phone service for Verizon was a little touchy, no digital stations, and satellite dish signal was hard to acquire due to all the trees. The staff was great!

I came here for the hiking. The campground is all sand/dirt so your trailer will get dirty. Additionally, most of the sites are close together with no real privacy. Luckily I had some great neighbors, therefore the camping experience was great. They have several hiking trails and one of the longer hikes travels thru so many different eco-systems, it was just amazing. Sometimes forgot I was in Florida.

This is our 6th Florida State Park in the Panhandle the past three weeks. So we can compare this experience to the other state parks. What we love about nature and this life style is hiking. So this park ranks among the others as having the best hiking of all! And that is because it reminds us of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, or the Boone Trail in North Carolina. Details about the hiking are in our blog added in here.

Additional best features of the park:
-Although only one of each, there is an outdoor laundry room with commercial grade machines and worked very well. Only $1.00 for each, washer goes about 30 min and the dryer about 45.
-Restroom are clean. Water pressure was good and plenty hot water.
-All sites are level, have a fire ring, clothes line, electric. The water spigot is placed between campsites so the even numbered ones have it on the same side as electric. Our neighbor didn't have enough hose, so he filled up his tank in his Motor Home.
-Church on Sunday! Sorry we won't be here to enjoy it! When we return, we will take this into consideration.
-Plenty of firewood for a meager suggested donation of $5.00. It's a bit green but if you bring your own hatchet and split it, it will burn with plenty of starter wood.
-Two Ranger offices with some supplies such as toilet paper and mosquito spray. One is in the center of the campground and the other at the Historic Gregory House.The Rangers are readily available. We didn't interact with the camp host, who is behind the scenes apparently. The one additional staff person was very friendly and helpful.
-We love historical tours of any kind, so the tour of the Historical Gregory House was a must! But during the week, only one tour time a day, at 10:00 am for an hour. Use your manual watch the day you want to take the tour! See below....

The not so good features:
-While the sites are very level, they are very narrow and are dirt. In fact, it is a dirt road to the campground, so when we were here, we got dusted good whenever we walked the 1/4 mile to the dumpster. The dirt roads were bumpy so not sure what it would be like to come when its very wet.
-The mosquitos came out the day we arrived (note arrived mid-March). And they are big and swarm you...so need good spray to keep them off.
-Upon checking in, the ranger nearly scared us to death about the copperhead snake. Now, we did need the warning but we came to hike and we have hiked all over the Appalachian and Great Smoky Mountains without any incidents. He said they do have 3 or 4 bites a year and while normally not fatal (unless you are allergic to the venom) it is painful and you will end up in the hospital. He said wear boots and long pants. They use camouflage for protection so are hard to see. They know where to strike if you step on one, thus boots and long pants will help. We ended up hiking a lot and never saw one, but our first hike was done with great trepidation.
-This campground is right at the Central Time Zone/Eastern Time Zone tower so my iPhone kept telling me we were back in Central Time...but this campground and the TOUR are run on Eastern time! So it was just a little annoying at first as I kept thinking we had more "time" than we actually did!

GOOD or BAD, your choice!
This park is very isolated, so come well-stocked and with your tank full or nearly full! It's about a 30 minute drive to civilization. It is convenient to I-10 however. So east or west and you will find supplies/gas. We came prepared and we loved the sounds of nature only!