With online classes and a work-from-home lifestyle changing the way we live our lives, it’s essential to get out and stay active in the great outdoors. If you live in Clay County, are planning on taking a day trip, or spending a long weekend in the area, make sure to plan some outdoor fun for you and your kids. Not sure where to start or what to do? We’ve compiled a list of fun ideas, activities, and sports to get you inspired.
Grab your clubs, get in the golf cart, and spend the day on the links with your family at the Eagle Landing Golf Course. Eagle landing is 7,037 yards of beautiful designs with several classic design holes from around the world in the par-72 layout.
Each nine begins relatively easy and progressively gets more challenging, perfect for a range of experienced (or inexperienced) golfers, so you can bring your kiddos to play with you on the fairway!
Eagle Landing also has a golf clubhouse with a sports bar, pro shop, his and her locker rooms, and an elegant restaurant to end the night after spending the day playing.
Prefer tossing a frisbee instead of hitting a golf ball? No worries, the Ronnie VanZant Memorial Park offers a disc golf course. This course offers 18 exciting and challenging holes, and the best part, it’s free!
After a fun game of frisbee golf, enjoy a picnic at one of the park’s seven pavilions with outdoor grills. Looking for more family activities at the local park? This park has a fishing pond, a baseball field, multi-purpose fields for playing tag, a volleyball sandpit, severely tennis and basketball courts, a children’s playground, and a nature walking trail.
Take a scenic trail ride around Diamond Ranch’s 500-acre working horse and cattle ranch on horseback. While on the ride, learn the history of the 6th generation, family-owned ranch. The 1-hour trail ride is perfect for anyone seven years or older.
Want to explore more of the Clay County surroundings? The 2-hour trail ride enjoys a ride around the ranch and then ventures out into Jennings State Forest. With roughly 26,000 acres and beautiful pine trees, this is a peaceful ride into nature. This ride is ideal for families with children ten years or older.
If you’re a horse lover, the half-day trail ride is for you! Pack a lunch and a cool drink, and embark on a 4-5 hour ride deep into the woods. After exploring the ranch and Jennings State Forest, the group takes a quick break at the enchanting historic church that sits in the heart of the forest.
If you need a quick activity to keep the kids moving, learning, exploring, and having fun, a scavenger hunt is a perfect activity for you. We’ve come up with three different options to keep the scavenger hunt varied. Turn this outdoor activity into a friendly competition and see who can find the list items the fastest.
Nature hunts are great for when you decide to take a nature walk at one of Clay County’s parks. Go to a local, state, or national park, bring your binoculars for wildlife viewing, and spend the day on a treasure hunt. Make your list of nature items or find a printable scavenger hunt list, and let the kiddos run around and explore. Not sure what things to add to your list? We’ll get you started with nature items you’ll be sure to find in Clay County:
To make the hunt more interactive, bring a little bucket, and let the kids drop their findings in there. Then compare the different items that they collected and do some research on the different plants that they gathered.
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS-enable device. Download the app on your phone or smart device and navigate to a specific set of coordinates and find the geocache (containers ranging from different sizes) hidden at the location. Clay County has hundreds of caches hidden around parks and cities, which is a perfect way to keep the kids, both young and old, entertained for hours.
Similar to Geocaching, Letterboxing is an outdoor treasure-hunt activity where you find hidden letterboxes by following a series of clues that can be found on the website. Once you find the box, record your discovery in a personal journal with the help of a rubber stamp that’s part of the letterbox. Don’t forget to bring your stamp to leave your special mark in the letterbox’s logbook!
One of our favorite things about geocaching and letterboxing is that you explore parts of the city or attractions that you would probably never visit. Let your curiosity lead you!
If you’re trying to find an outdoor adventure for your teenagers, test your driving skills at The Firm’s Open Track Days. With blind corners, elevation changes, and curvy roads, The Firm has the thrill and adrenaline your teens crave. No speed limits and no traffic lights. Only high speeds!
The track is open for all kinds of drivers, from experts to novices. Test your driving skills in groups of 9 cars on the 1.6-mile track.
Spending time in nature has healing properties: not only is it great for your physical and mental health, but it also helps bring your family closer together. Playing catch, swinging a golf club, and riding a horse helps you stay active and breathe some fresh. If you’re looking for the best hiking and biking trails in Clay County, or other ideas on how to spend the day outdoors in the area, check out some of our previous blogs! Spend some family time together in the beautiful nature of Clay County!
