Leaf peeping near Deerfield Beach, FL

Fern Forest Nature Center

The closest thing to leaf peeping you can reach from Deerfield Beach without leaving Broward County: a 244-acre preserve about ten minutes west, where an elevated boardwalk crosses a remnant of the Cypress Creek floodplain. Pond cypress and red maples are the two deciduous trees here, so late in the year you get rust and copper needles over dark water rather than a hillside of color. It is free, flat and short, which makes it an easy after-work walk rather than a day out. Set expectations accordingly: this is a quiet urban swamp, not a foliage destination.

Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge

A half-hour up the road from Deerfield Beach, this refuge protects the northernmost remnant of the Everglades, and the short Cypress Swamp Boardwalk behind the visitor center is the reason to come in the fall. The loop runs through a genuine cypress swamp, so when the needles turn you get bronze reflected in still water, usually with alligators and wading birds thrown in. The walk is a fraction of a mile and fully accessible, so it pairs well with the longer levee trails if you want to make a morning of it. The refuge charges by the carload, and the boardwalk is the only stretch that really reads as autumn.

Big Cypress National Preserve

About two hours west across Alligator Alley, Big Cypress is the largest stand of cypress country you can drive to from South Florida, and in late fall the cypress domes scattered through the wet prairie go rust and copper. The Oasis Visitor Center has a short boardwalk over a canal that is usually lined with alligators, and the Loop Road and Turner River Road give you miles of slow driving through the same scenery. Entry is free, which makes it the cheapest real fall outing on this list. The trade-off is distance and mosquitoes, and the color is subtle enough that first-timers sometimes drive through it without noticing.

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park

Florida's largest state preserve sits just west of Big Cypress and protects the deepest cypress strand in the state, the one orchid hunters made famous. The Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk off US 41 is the easy way in: a short raised walk under genuinely ancient trees, ending at a viewing platform over a gator pond. For three dollars a car it is the best value on this list, and it is close enough to Corkscrew and Big Cypress to string all three into one day. Most of the preserve's 85,000 acres are trackless swamp, so the boardwalk and the Janes Scenic Drive are realistically all a casual visitor will see.

Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

If you only make one cypress trip from South Florida, this is the one worth the drive. Corkscrew protects the largest surviving old-growth bald cypress forest anywhere, with trees over 500 years old, and the whole thing is reachable on a boardwalk that runs more than two miles through marsh, pine flatwoods and finally the deep shade of the ancient stand. When the needles turn, the canopy overhead goes copper and the light on the water is the closest Florida gets to a New England postcard. It is the most expensive stop here by a wide margin, and the sanctuary keeps shorter hours than a state park, so check before you drive out.

Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve

A wetland corridor running through suburban Fort Myers, with a wide accessible boardwalk that loops through a dark cypress strand and past two ponds. It is the easiest cypress walk on this list to combine with an actual errand, since it sits minutes off I-75, and the pay-by-the-hour parking means a quick look costs almost nothing. Loggers cleared this county in the 1930s, so most of the trees are second growth and smaller than Corkscrew's, though a few gnarled old pond cypress survived. Good for a stretch of the legs on the way to or from Naples rather than a destination in its own right.

Highlands Hammock State Park

One of Florida's original state parks, about two and a half hours north of Deerfield Beach, protecting an old-growth oak and palm hammock with trees centuries old. The draw in the fall is the Cypress Boardwalk, a CCC-era catwalk with a rail on only one side that takes you out over a swamp basin, plus a loop road with short trails peeling off it that you can walk or bike. This is the northernmost stop still reachable as a long day trip from Broward County. The colour is a mix of turning cypress and hardwood understory rather than a canopy display, so treat it as a good hike with autumn touches.

Flying Eagle Preserve

Nearly 11,000 acres of hardwood, marsh and lake country in the Withlacoochee basin near Inverness, laced with about 22 miles of multi-use trail. It matters on this list because it is the southernmost site where sources say the hardwoods and cypress start turning in late October rather than waiting for the end of November, so it opens the season for anyone driving up from the coast. It is free and it is a stop on the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail, which makes it a good pairing with a Crystal River or Ocala weekend. There is no boardwalk and no visitor centre: you are hiking or biking dirt trails, and a reservation is needed if you want to camp.

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park

A 22,000-acre grassland basin between Micanopy and Gainesville where the autumn show comes from the prairie itself rather than from trees: the marsh grasses turn a golden bronze across an opening wide enough to see weather coming. Bison and wild horses roam free here, and the trail network includes the La Chua Trail and the long Gainesville-Hawthorne rail trail. It is a genuinely different kind of fall scenery, and worth the stop if you are already driving north. If you specifically want turning leaves, this is the wrong park: there is no canopy display, and the basin floods in some seasons.

Ormond Scenic Loop and Trail

The only drive-it option here: a 30-mile double loop north of Daytona that strings together four state parks and six local parks along creeks, marshes, beach and the Halifax River. Red maples, pignut hickory and oaks give it the most varied colour of anything within a half-day of South Florida, and because it is a public road network it costs nothing and you can join it at several points. Cyclists use it heavily, so it doubles as a ride. It is a route rather than a destination, which means no single trailhead, no gate and no ranger to ask about conditions.

Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park

South of Tallahassee, built around one of the world's largest and deepest freshwater springs, with a 1930s lodge and cypress swamp along the river. The fall draw is red sugar maples and the tan leaves of beech, plus beautyberry turning purple once the weather cools, and the classic way to see it is the narrated riverboat tour rather than a trail. The setting is photogenic enough that Hollywood used it for Creature from the Black Lagoon and a Tarzan picture. It is a long haul from Deerfield Beach at roughly 400 miles, so it belongs in a Panhandle trip rather than a day out.

Torreya State Park

This is the one place in Florida that genuinely delivers what a leaf peeper is picturing. Perched on steep bluffs above the Apalachicola River at the southernmost tip of the Appalachian range, it has the elevation and the species mix (southern sugar maple, sweetgum, sourwood) to put on a real display, and it starts turning in late October, earlier than the rest of the state. The Weeping Ridge and Rock Creek trails drop through ravines and bottomland that look nothing like the rest of Florida. The catch is distance: it is roughly 466 miles from Palm Beach County, an eight-hour-plus drive each way, so it is a trip, not an outing.

Three Rivers State Park

On the Georgia line where the Chattahoochee and Flint meet to form Lake Seminole, this small Panhandle park has slopes steep enough to create a microclimate, which is why trillium and trout lily grow in its hardwood forest. In autumn the hiking is about brilliantly coloured oaks and maples with deep-red pine mixed in, and sassafras turning along the trails. Three short loops (Lakeview, Dry Creek, Eagle) cover the park, and the fishing on Lake Seminole is a draw in its own right. Like the other Panhandle stops it is roughly 470 miles from South Florida, and it is quieter and less dramatic than Torreya an hour away.

Falling Waters State Park

Best known for Florida's tallest waterfall, which drops about 73 feet from a limestone lip straight into a deep cylindrical sinkhole, reached by trails and a boardwalk overlook. The autumn colour here is a bonus rather than the headline: sources note brightly coloured leaves in season, but the ridges are mostly longleaf pine and wiregrass, so it is thinner than Torreya an hour east. What it does have is genuinely unusual terrain, rolling hills and a cave at the bottom of the sinkhole. Worth folding into a Panhandle loop with Torreya and Three Rivers rather than driving 500 miles for on its own.