Free kid-friendly structured activities are regularly held at the park. For a complete listing of September 2011 Free Skidaway Island State Park Kid-Friendly Events, visit our new Skidaway State Park children’s activities page by clicking here.

The park’s Interpretive Center (i.e. Nature Center) is surrounded by easy hiking trails including the 1-mile Avian Loop Trail, 1-mile Sandpiper Trail Loop, and the 3-mile Big Ferry Trail Loop.

The Interpretive Center includes a display of the Giant Ground Sloth replica (pictured here); wildlife exhibits; live reptiles including a terrapin turtle; and birding station.

Interpretive Center hours: Wednesday-Sunday 10 AM-5 PM at Skidaway Island State Park. Cost: $5 for parking.
52 Diamond Causeway, Savannah, 31411, 912-598-2300, http://www.gastateparks.org/SkidawayIsland

Looking for a way to introduce your preschooler to Savannah’s downtown historic architecture?

Check out  “Savannah Safari,”  a $6 booklet that takes kids on a quick and easy walking adventure through Historic Savannah. Today, I took my 20-month-old daughter and 3-year-old son on the tour. Although my daughter may be a little young to “get it”, my 3-year-old son really enjoyed the search for architectural animals in gardens and squares (horse hitching posts, lion statues, frog fountain, dolphin downspouts, gargoyles)  

You can order a copy on the Savannah Safari Web site. The illustrated booklet complete with a map is also available at  Girl Scout First Headquarters, 330 Drayton Street, or the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace (10 E. Oglethorpe Ave).

For more info on another kid-friendly self-guided downtown Savannah walking tour/scavenger hunt, click here

Savannah Fun Tours offers Scavenger Hunts that are perfect for families who want to learn about Savannah in a fun, interactive, economical way.

These self guided, self paced tours allow you to see Savannah by foot, on your own schedule, at your own pace, with your friends, family and pets.

The “passport” tour book is $25. Take as many people along as you like and you’ll use your book to navigate your way around town “collecting” words from monument markers. All the words will create a unique sentence.

When you are done, take the booklet back to where you bought it to collect your PRIZE worth at least $8 (one prize per book). For more info and to find out the various spots where you can purchase the hunt tour book, click here.

The new Georgia State Parks Geo-Challenge invites GPS-toting geocaching explorers to travel trails in search of hidden caches.

Adventure seekers use a GPS unit to find hidden treasures, then share their experiences online. Caches usually contain trinkets that geocachers can keep, replacing them with something else. Some trackable items, called travel bugs, make their way across the country and create a story as they go.

With the new Georgia State Parks Geo-Challenge, players download a PassPort by clicking here, find hidden stamps in each cache to spell out the PassPort’s message and collect custom geocoins.

Forty-two state parks have hidden caches with “first to find” prizes of a free night of camping. Three parks also have more elusive “bonus caches.” Players go to www.Geocaching.com to find the GPS coordinates for each hidden box. After their journey, players can talk about the parks and what they found.

Caches are hidden in public-access areas, so treasure hunters will not venture off trails or into remote locations.