Pearce, who gets his off-the-grid kicks as activities coordinator for the 1,200-member-strong Outdoor Club of South Jersey, says his favorite place to unplug is in a canoe in the middle of the Wharton State Forest’s Atsion Lake, just a few minutes’ drive from home. From small but serene neighborhood parks to vast state forests that link up with the 50-mile-long Batona Trail (appropriately, it’s short for Back to Nature, given that the hike is as good as a rapid airlift out of the world of jug-handles and into the depths of the Pine Barrens), South Jersey offers countless opportunities to escape from the smartphone radius and to turn left at will. There are miles of hiking trails ranging from wheelchair-accessible boardwalks to wilderness adventures, hidden streams just wide enough to navigate by canoe, and enough bike paths, campsites and lakes to try someplace new almost every weekend.
http://www.southjersey.com/articles/?articleID=26287
http://www.southjersey.com/articles/?articleID=26287