Better than a theme park - Military Travel, hottest travel destinations - Military Times

Better than a theme park

The greater Orlando, Fla., area is well known for the obvious: sprawling strip malls, chain eateries and, of course, enormous theme parks promising fun and adventure. But at some point, you may get sick of the parks.

Then it’s time to get wild — and get off the well-worn tourist path.

From a starlight zipline tour on a ranch south of Orlando to waterskiing to off-road safaris — both motorized and hoofed — there’s much more to the area than most tourists ever dream of.

Disney Wilderness Preserve

A good, low-key beginning is a hike through a very different kind of Disney park.

Located in Kissimmee, 25 miles south of Walt Disney World, the Disney Wilderness Preserve is a 12,000-acre park owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy. Other than bathrooms and a few picnic tables, there are no amenities — unless you count the vast swaths of green and gold saw palmetto foliage, flanked by majestic cypress domes.

The wilderness trail can be broken up into an easy, 2.45-mile hike or an easier 1-mile stroll.

A little more than a half-mile in, our group detoured onto a spur to picnic near Lake Russell, which is a rarity in central Florida because it’s one of the few lakes that has no development along its shoreline.

Forever Florida

Our next stop took us 45 miles southeast to St. Cloud, where the Forever Florida eco-ranch is nestled among cattle ranches and orange groves.

This 4,700-acre property offers coach safaris, camping, ranch experiences, horseback rides and zipline tours. We chose the latter two — a one-hour horseback ride and a “starlight” zipline tour.

Our leader was “Turkey Creek” Gary, a self-proclaimed cowboy complete with Wrangler jeans, spurs and a gun nestled in a hip holster, who led our mounted group of five down a dusty trail and into thick woods — and water. The horses dutifully waded belly-deep into a river.

After dinner, we were back on the ranch for the zipline tour.

There are seven ziplines and two suspension bridges on this tour; you can soar at speeds of up to 25 mph on the longer lines.

Even though I had zipped through trees in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, I felt a pang of anxiety as I climbed the first platform, a four-story structure, in the dark.

By the time I reached the next platform, the only things that hurt were my cheeks, from grinning so hard.

Revolution Off Road

Run by Kevin Jowett, a former rally car racer from the United Kingdom, Revolution Off Road in Clermont, a small town north of Walt Disney World, offers ATV, dune buggy and 4x4 adventures on Jowett’s large property.

Jowett fitted us with helmets, gloves and goggles and explained how to be safe while on the machines. He put us through a training course, where we practiced turning and braking. Then we headed onto a trail that wound through the property, past lakes and pines, up small hills, over logs and through sand.

By the end of the tour, I was covered in mud — not something that would happen at any theme park.