Buenaventura Lakes, FL Outdoor Activities

There’s nothing like skimming across Lake Tohopekaliga’s surface, propelled by a 500hp fan. That’s the thrilling experience offered by the Wild Willy’s Airboat Tours, which drift in the gentle marsh to catch sights of great blue herons, 12-foot alligators, snails, and other native creatures. All the while, your guide will provide expert information on the lake and the surrounding terrain, plus help you spot the wildlife.

While other tour guides pack groups into 12-passenger boats, Wild Willy’s keeps it passenger numbers low to reduce weight and increase speed. Up to six guests can board one of the airboat, which sail past reeds and Spanish moss before. Afterwards, you can take pictures with resident baby gators Thunder and Half-Stripe in the visitors’ center. And safety is a major focus at Wild Willy’s—guests should arrive 15 minutes before their tour time to receive a Coast Guard-required talk about safety.

A snowball’s throw away from the Disney World and Universal Studio theme parks, The Ice Factory of Central Florida extends the season of winter sports to a year-round festival of open-skate sessions and pickup or youth-league hockey matches. During public-skate hours, patrons lace up hockey or figure skates before hitting the NHL- and studio-size rinks to learn the ropes or gracefully carve the name of their favorite zamboni driver into the ice. Weekend DJ skates enliven outings with interactive games and prizes on Saturday afternoons and musical stylings on Saturday nights. After a fun-filled workout on the rink, grownup guests can unwind with a frosty beverage at the rinkside bar and lounge, and kids pass the time at the pool table or ring in birthdays with sodas, pizzas, and bouquets of balloons.

Novice skaters of all ages can master the skills and techniques of icemanship with beginners’ lessons or mock nature’s clearly defined seasons with ice-skating summer camps.

As part of the national Experienced Based Learning network of outdoor tours and ziplines, Zip Orlando safely sends its visitors zooming 65 feet in the air over the treetops and fields of a 2,700-acre Kissimmee cattle ranch. Through extensive training and membership in the Professional Ropes Course Association, guides strictly adhere not only to safety guidelines, but also to green course construction and tour practices. The company’s regular operations include minimum-impact trail paths; eco-friendly tree trimming; and carbon-neutral, human-powered zipline transportation.

Daily zipline tours traverse 300 feet of midair suspension bridges and hurtle down eight ziplines that range up to 950 feet in length. Moonlit and sunset tours might give visitors a sky-high glimpse of fireworks at the distant Disney resort. At ground level, ATV expeditions ferry passengers in the cabin of a Polaris Ranger past up-close views of the verdant Florida backcountry.

Harmony Golf Preserve is an award-winning golf destination that prized as a Top 10 Orlando Golf Course in 2011 from Golf Orlando Florida. Course architect and US Open Champion Johnny Miller designed a layout that would work in concert with the local wildlife. The result is a sprawling championship course that melds seamlessly with the natural wetlands and wooded thickets of the 260-acre wildlife preserve that surrounds it, earning the distinction of a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.

While acting as a haven for feathered and furred animals, the course challenges golfers with tricky doglegs and undulating terrain, culminating in the course’s signature 9th hole, whose treacherous sand bunkers and water to the left of the green demand precision off the tee or a generous bribe to the mulligan maestro hiding in the thickets.

During course play, players can stop at a beverage cart or at the Grill on the Turn to refuel. After penciling in their final score, golfers can savor artisanal dishes and bask in the elegant, old-Florida atmosphere maintained by Graze, the clubhouse restaurant. Harmony Golf Preserve also helps players of all stripes cultivate their skills and clubbing techniques at The Performance Academy, while budding golfers can equip themselves with brand-name equipment and apparel from the pro shop.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Length of 7,428
• Course rating of 76.1
• Slope rating of 136
• Take a virtual course tour
• Five sets of tee boxes

The 18-hole course at Winter Pines Golf Club incorporates tall trees, wooden bridges, and water that comes into play on several holes, sculpting out a challenging round for beginners and more experienced players alike. Opened in 1968, the par 67 loop retains its original design, including a 224-yard par 3 on the 12th hole and the course's signature hole, which is also the most difficult, the 400-yard par 4 fifth. Several lakes come into play as the course takes its residential tour, forcing players to hit over them to reach safety or hollow out a putter to use as a snorkel.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 67 course
• Total length of 5,401 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 65.3 from the back tees
• Course slope of 106 from the back tees
• Two sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard

In 1917, toward the end of WWI, the greens of Winter Park Country Club’s golf course echoed with baaing and bleating. In response to the wartime meat shortage, golfer cleats had given way to hooves: the course’s links, designed by John Dunn of Scotland just 17 years earlier, became grazing pastures for sheep and goats.

This was just one of many course reinventions during its more than 100 years of history, which has seen Winter Park’s fairways expand from 9 to 27 and shrink back to 9 again. Perhaps the course's greatest claim to fame has been the legendary figures who have graced its narrow, tree-hampered fairways, including players with surnames such as Hogan, Snead, and Sarazen.

Players of all stripes, from greenhorns to green-jacket holders, must deal with difficult design and terrain, as showcased on the course’s signature fourth hole, whose dogleg left and tight out-of-bounds areas lead a troubling path to a green situated behind two large bunkers and a massive oak tree. The biggest challenge, however, may reside on the par 3 seventh hole, whose deceptively simple 165-yard length leads into a hard-to-read green with a shape-shifting flagstick.

Course at a Glance:

• Nine-hole, par 35 course

• Length of 2,470 yards

• Course rating of 31.8

• Slope rating of 102 on bermuda grass

• See hole details