PARKS & OUTDOORS
Conservation Park
Bay County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
Twenty-nine hundred acres of city-owned woods and wetland with more than 24 miles of trail and boardwalks over the cypress domes.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Panama City Beach Conservation Park runs to 2,900 acres and carries more than 24 miles of trail, which is a lot of walking for a park a city owns and runs itself. There are five color-coded loops, from 1.8 miles up to 11, and a further 0.6-mile loop along Walt Oberst Way. Boardwalks carry the path across the cypress domes and the wetlands, which is what makes the place walkable at all in the wet months. The trails are natural surface and are used by cyclists as much as by walkers. Walt Oberst Way also links the park to Gayle's Trails, the paved bike paths that run out to Frank Brown Park and beyond, so it is possible to arrive on a bicycle rather than drive to it. Of the 2,900 acres, 908 are upland and 2,004 are wetland, and the wetlands are kept wet deliberately: the city pumps its reclaimed water back into the West Bay ecosystem to rehydrate ground that had dried out. There are twelve marked trails in all. The trailhead has restrooms, picnic tables, a pavilion that can be rented, and 152 parking spaces. Dogs are allowed on a leash, two to a person. It opens dawn to dusk, seven days a week, and there is no charge to go in
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