Lithia

Lithia is the rural end of eastern Hillsborough, and the address FishHawk technically sits inside. Head east past the Ranch and the subdivisions thin out fast into pasture, phosphate land and river.

The outdoors

Alafia River State Park has some of the best mountain biking in Florida, built on reclaimed phosphate land, which is why a flat state has real elevation here. Lithia Springs Park has the swimming hole locals grew up on. Both draw people from across the bay on weekends.

What it is like

Bigger lots, horses, and a slower pace than anywhere else we cover. Lithia Pinecrest Road is the spine. Cell service gets thin the further east you go.

Lithia Springs, and how not to waste the drive

Lithia Springs Conservation Park, 3932 Lithia Springs Road, is 160 acres built around a spring that holds 72 degrees year round. It is the swimming hole a lot of people out here grew up on.

Read this part before you go. Swimming runs in two four-hour blocks, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., each capped at 200 swimmers, and swim bands are sold on site only. People drive out and get turned away. Park entry is $2 per vehicle for up to eight people and swimming is $2 a head. Children 12 and under need an adult. The swim area closes an hour before the park, which is 7 p.m. in spring and summer and 6 p.m. the rest of the year.

Pets and service animals are not permitted in the spring area at all.

There are 45 campsites, most of them RV-suitable, with 30-amp service and fifteen sites at 50-amp, water, showers and fire pits. Camping is $24 a night, $18 at 55 and over, $12 for county residents 65 and over, and youth group camping is $2 per person. Beyond the spring there are hiking trails through cypress swamp, a playground, a volleyball court, fishing and picnic shelters, though shelters are not rented April through September.

Alafia River State Park

14326 South County Road 39. The land was a phosphate mine, and the mining left what the state calls significant elevation variations unusual for Central Florida. That is exactly why the riding here is known nationally: twenty miles of hilly trail, including International Mountain Bicycling Association trails that draw riders from outside the state.

It is not only a bike park. Horseback riding, canoeing, paddling, fishing, birding and hiking, plus a full-service bike shop on site, picnic pavilions, a playground and campfire circles. Camping runs to a full-facility campground, equestrian accommodations and glamping bell tent rentals. Open 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year, $5 per vehicle.

Trails close for repair from time to time, so check the park page the morning you ride.

The other preserves

Balm-Boyette Nature Preserve covers 5,723 acres including roughly 800 acres of intact scrub, and it protects Florida golden aster, Florida scrub-jay, indigo snake and gopher tortoise. Be careful which entrance you take. The 25 miles of mountain bike trail everybody talks about are on the south side, which has a Wimauma address. The Lithia entrance at 13998 Balm Boyette Road is the west section, and it is the hiking side.

Alderman’s Ford Conservation Park straddles the line with Plant City. The main entrance is on the Plant City side, but the canoe launch is at 9625 Canoe Launch Loop in Lithia. The centerpiece is a 1.9-mile paved loop following both prongs of the Alafia, with boardwalks and foot bridges through cypress and oak. There is primitive camping, though the sites require a hike in of a mile to a mile and a half. No swimming, and pets and bikes are not allowed on the boardwalk. Entry is $2 a vehicle.

Pinecrest Sports Complex at 9312 South County Road 39 is the unstaffed local ball field, with a baseball diamond, restrooms, picnic tables and a concession stand.

Schools

Lithia’s 33547 address covers all of the FishHawk Ranch schools: Newsome High School, Randall Middle, Barrington Middle, and FishHawk Creek, Bevis and Stowers elementaries. Outside the Ranch, Lithia is rural and has none of its own.

One thing that catches people out: despite the name, Lithia Springs Elementary School is in Valrico, not Lithia.

Getting around

There is no interstate and no state highway through the core. County Road 39 is the north-south spine, Lithia Pinecrest runs north to Lumsden Avenue in Brandon, Lithia Springs Road serves the spring park and the FishHawk Creek preserve’s north entrance, and Boyette heads west into Riverview toward US 301. That is it. Everything funnels into one of them.

FDOT’s current project list for Lithia has exactly one item on it, a resurfacing of SR 674 at the far southern edge. That is the whole state road program here, and it tells you something true about the place.

The billion-dollar project nobody talks about

The county broke ground in 2026 on the One Water South wastewater project, and it is physically in Lithia. It is a $1.2 billion build with three parts: the One Water Campus advanced wastewater treatment facility, the Balm Road Super Lift Station, and the pipelines connecting them. The lift station can move up to 56 million gallons a day to the new plant, which the county says is designed to serve the region through at least 2050.

It serves Apollo Beach, Brandon, Gibsonton, Riverview, Ruskin, Wimauma, Sun City and Valrico. Which is to say the capacity that lets the rest of east county keep growing is being built out here, on the quiet end.

What we cover here

Park conditions and closures, the trails, community events, road work, and the small businesses working out this direction.