Camping at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, Jacksonville, Florida

Continuing on our journey, we travelled back to Hanna Park which we visited earlier this year.  The official name of this park is Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park and is a county park (as opposed to a state park).    We travelled approximately 47 miles from Fort Clinch State Park to Hanna Park.  Hanna Park is located on the along the Atlantic coast providing access to trees, trails and the beach all in one.

Park Details

Hanna Park

Address: 500 Wonderwood Drive, Jacksonville - 32233

Park  (904) 255-6767

Email [email protected]

Park 8am – 6pm

Park Office 8 a.m.–6 p.m.

Cell service was great here with Verizon. Antenna service for us was spotty making it hard to watch much in terms of television.

Its interesting that we have now camped at this park twice and not yet caught a capture of the sign indicating that this was "Hanna Park".  They did have this nice little pond and fountain next to the entrance which is very nice.

• This is a good size park at 450 acres.
• 1.5 miles of sandy beach in this oceanfront park (and its dog friendly! As long as they are on a leash). 
• 13 miles of bicycle trails (changing directions based on the day of week).
• 60-acre fresh water lake for boating and fishing. 
• 300 campsites hidden among the trees – and some are very large oak! 
• Hiking trails, playground, so has just about everything you need for a wonderful time.  Our girls love the beach.

FYI - We didn't have a problem with ticks this time nor the 'air traffic' being to low and noisy.

Campsite Details
 

110, 30 and 50 amp electric

Picnic table, Fire ring

Dirt campsite and level

Water and sewer

Back in sites

Checkin is 1pm

Checkout is 12pm

Quiet hours 10pm - 7am

Our campsite was dirt and mostly shade, campsite #31. Lot of trees in this campground providing shade.  We were located at the end of Row C in the campground.  One thing that is different for this park, the campsite numbers are posted on the electric post.  However, in the case of our campsite, we had all the hookups in the middle of our site, which made it challenging for our friends to find our campsite because you couldn’t see the campsite number.  Just be aware of this little difference.  Also - this could be a 'plus' or 'negative' depending on your view, but there is a street lamp that lights up your campsite a bit and also throws some light into your camper unless you have something to block light from your door window.

The bath house was not clean this time when we visited.  This was a very negative mark for this park this time.  We checked several different bath houses and they were a bit of a mess.  We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and there were lots of people there so perhaps they were overwhelmed – but come Monday tons of people were gone (and more on Tuesday) yet the bath houses were still a bit of a mess and not well maintained.  We didn’t experience this when we camped back in January 2025, but it was very obvious this time.

The laundry machines were outside of one of the main bath houses.  The machines worked great, but also one of the most expensive places to do laundry at 3.00 for wash and 3.00 for dryer.

They do have a nice campground store but make sure you watch the hours because we got caught on that one time.  We stopped at the camp store on our way out on Tuesday morning and if was very nice and fairly well stocked.

The beach

We visited the beach a few times with our dogs – they loved it – in fact, they just loved playing in the sand – not so sure about any thinking of swimming (waves are big for a dog) – but they enjoyed it.

Rue (with her ears up - very rare - maybe there was a little breeze helping)

Rue

Ollie

Abby

Hiking

We did go hiking one day while at the park – more hiking than we did back in January.  The trail we picked started over near the office (to the south of the office) and we choose to stay away from the lake due to the possibility of alligators since we had dogs.  It was typical Florida scenery but was shaded and enjoyable.  We eventually popped out onto one of the streets – realized we were close to the beach and walked over to the beach.  Course by the time we got done with this hike, we were getting a bit warm, hungry and tired.  I got out water and snacks for all of us.  We chilled for a bit in the shade and then finally walked back to where we parked the truck near the office. I am thinking we probably walked about 3 miles by then.

Food - Dockside

We decided it would be nice to eat out since we were in a more populated area.  We had originally planned to go to Safe Harbor Seafood Restaurant, but they are closed on Mondays.  So, we decided to go check out the Dockside Seafood Restaurant which was a further drive from the campground.  When we returned, we talked with out campsite neighbor and he mentioned that Dockside used to be a Safe Harbor location but was sold.  I am guessing that the food is similar in both restaurants – just Safe Harbor is much closer to the campground (maybe next time with better planning!).

The food was great – fresh seafood!  They have an area in the back, kind of a patio, where you can eat dinner with your dog(s) and enjoy the waterfront.  You go into order your food, but they will bring it out to you.

MAP

This is a copy of the campground map, as you can see its pretty big!  We were a good distance from the campsite we had back in January - wanted to try another location in the campground.  This one worked out really well but we weren't found of the street lamp on the corner.

In reviewing the above map, looks like we took the green trail (easy) over towards the lake on the south side and then eventually walked over to the beach over at "P 8".

To see all the photographs from this stop on our trip, click here.