Geocaching is a fun outdoor treasure hunting activity using your smartphone GPS app or Garmin devices. Many of you have already been geocaching in our area. The downtown area has a tour of historical sites and we recently discovered the Escambia County Environmental Geocache tour. This tour was actually launched in 2009 and then enhanced this year. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Escambia County and the City of Pensacola worked together to make it more user-friendly and fun. The tour is comprised of 13 stops and guides residents and visitors to the area’s major environmental restoration projects and unique environmental habitats.
Tour includes:
- The Big Escambia Creek Restoration Project, to return the Big Escambia Creek to its original flow
- Project Green Shores, the award-winning project to restore oyster, saltmarsh and seagrass habitat in Pensacola Bay
- The recently unveiled Admiral Mason Park, with its beautiful pond, fountains and walkways that not only add to the beautiful sites of Pensacola, but also serve as a stormwater treatment system for the surrounding 31 acres
- Cutting-edge stormwater retrofit projects such as the Glynn Key Stormwater Park at Southgate Plaza, which turned a traditional stormwater pond into a county wetland park in the middle of commercial development. The tour also includes the 17th Street stormwater project, which combines state-of-the-art technology designed to remove solids and debris from stormwater using an underground vault, with a “polishing wetland” to remove nutrients from the stormwater prior to being discharged into the mouth of Bayou Texar.
- Three of Florida’s award-winning State Parks, Big Lagoon State Park, Perdido Key State Park and Tarkiln Bayou Preserve State Park, which highlight the beautiful and unique habitats in our area.
Geocachers will find a different colored pen at each stop. People who visit at least 8 of the 13 locations, and use the colored pens at each location to check off the tour visit sheet, can receive a tour prize.
Download the Tour Visit Sheet
Claim your tour coin celebrating the tour and the City of Pensacola’s 450th birthday once you have completed the tour. Just show the receptionist the completed tour visit sheet.
- Department of Environmental Protection located at 160 W. Government Street Please sign in with security guard in the lobby and then go to the third floor, Suite 308. Contact number 595-8300.
- Escambia County Natural Resource Conservation Division located at 151 Hwy 97 Molino (inside the Farm Bureau Building). Contact number is 587-5404 ext. 102.
