By Tori PhelPs
Dining on succulent Gulf seafood, sunbathing on pristine beaches— there’s no shortage of laid-back options for Panama City Beach visitors. But to add some action to your trip, Frank Brown Park is a one-stop destination for fun on the run. This 200-acre recreational area caters to most active interests—with amenities too numerous to list. Play tennis with your sweetie on one of four courts, take the dog for a walk at the dedicated dog park, or treat the family to some splash time at the $4.1 million aquatic center.
“The two hundred acres of fun-filled space ensures that there is plenty of room to enjoy yourself without feeling like you’re imposing on someone else’s fun.” — Mayor Gayle oBersT
And that’s just for starters. You can also take advantage of the kids’ fishing pond, two outdoor basketball courts, the indoor gym, half a dozen picnic pavilions, the stateof-the-art playground, four batting cages, nine baseball fields, three full-size soccer fields, and the 1.25-mile paved walking trail. Beautiful walking paths are also for use at Frank Brown Park as part of Gayle’s Trails. In the future, these paths will create an unbroken trail from the Walton County line to St. Andrews State Park. With so much to do, visitors can easily spend a full day at the park and not experience everything it has to offer. And it just keeps growing. An adjacent 3,000acre nature conservation park recently opened, 26 | VISITPANAMACITYBEACH.COM
offering walking and biking trails, abundant plant and animal life, and incredible scenery. Like most activities at the park (except for the aquatic center), it’s completely free. The two hundred acres of fun-filled space ensures that there is plenty of room to enjoy yourself without feeling like you’re imposing on someone else’s fun. However, with all the activities offered at Frank Brown Park, there is plenty to do in one spot. With ideal year-round weather, it’s not surprising that one of the most used areas is the twenty-acre outdoor festival site. People often fly kites and motorized airplanes in this wideopen space. Of course, it was designed to host big shows,