Making Nature Accessible for All

North Carolina: Nags Head Woods Preserve

Nags Head Woods Preserve is located on the Outer Banks. It is home to one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the East Coast. A maritime forest is defined as a woodland habitat affected by the ocean. Something unique about this preserve is that it is shielded by two active sand dunes, which creates the perfect home for a diversity of plants and animals. Nags Head Woods has eight hiking trails, and one of those is fully accessible and ADA-compliant. This trail hosts a butterfly garden, a maritime swamp forest, a freshwater pond where you can fish and a stunning overlook of the brackish marsh.

The trail is comprised of a wooden boardwalk and concrete with two handicapped parking spaces at the trailhead.

Virginia: Vandell Preserve at Cumberland Marsh

Vandell Preserve at Cumberland Marsh is a mixture of freshwater tidal marsh and wooded upland. The preserve provides important migratory and wintering habitat for waterfowl. It also has the world's largest population of the rare sensitive joint-vetch (Aeschynomene virginica), a member of the pea family listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. 

The preserve has an accessible parking area, a boardwalk and an observation area where you can spot bald eagles, ospreys, great blue herons and egrets. 

Florida: Tiger Creek Preserve

Tiger Creek Preserve sits on the eastern edge of Lake Wales Ridge, one of Florida’s ancient islands. Long ago, a shallow sea separated the ridge from the mainland, making it peninsular Florida’s oldest and highest landmass. This unique separation has made this preserve the perfect home for the highest concentrations of threatened and endangered plants and animals in the country—some of which exist nowhere else on Earth.

Tiger Creek Preserve is in the pilot stage of its Accessible Track Chairs Program. TNC volunteers are leading this project and have donated over 100 hours to make the trails, parking lot and office more accessible. 

Kentucky: Dupree Nature Preserve

Dupree Nature Preserve protects important grasslands and forestland. It provides a foraging habitat for endangered bats. Besides the biological importance of this preserve, it offers hands-on, place-based environmental outreach and education. It is located near Lexington, ensuring its accessibility to rural and urban residents, young and old. Its infrastructure and activities that do not exist at any other nature preserve in Kentucky. 

Soon the Duree Preserve will include a fully accessible trail. TNC in Kentucky recently completed fundraising to build the first accessible trail. Stay tuned for the big opening around the spring of 2025.