1
Fort Custer Recreation Area
Park
2,893 acres46.5 mi of trail
Red TrailGreen TrailAntenna TrailYellow TrailHistoric Trail
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
Outdoors · Charleston
Charleston, MI parks, trails & bike paths
About 2.5% of Charleston is conserved land, roughly 573 acres. There are about 61 miles of mapped trails, and the biggest networks are in Fort Custer Recreation Area (46.5 mi) and Augusta Floodplain Nature Preserve (0.5 mi).
Conserved land, trails, parks and bike routes in Charleston, measured from OpenStreetMap and USGS data.
At a glance
Charleston outdoors
Conserved land
2.5%
573 of 22,623 acres
Trails
61 mi
1.7 mi per sq mi
Parks & preserves
4
286 conserved acres per 1,000 residents
Bike routes
4.2 mi
4.2 mi lanes · 0.0 mi off-road paths
Conserved land is a share of the whole town area. Bike lanes are often missing from the map in smaller towns, so that number is likely low.
Map
Conserved land, trails & bike routes
Tap a number or a place below to zoom in© OpenStreetMap contributors · USGS PAD-US
Places to walk
Parks & preserves with trails
Ranked by mapped trail miles. Directions go to the nearest marked trailhead or public parking.
2
Augusta Floodplain Nature Preserve
Managed by Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy
395 acres0.5 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
3
Cold Brook County Park
Managed by Kalamazoo County
271 acres0.1 mi of trail
Dog rules not recorded
DirectionsTo the parking lot
4
Oak Braes Nature Preserve
Managed by Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy
35 acres
Dog rules not recorded
No trailhead mapped yet
Who protects the land
573 conserved acres
Who manages it, from PAD-US. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
Conserved doesn't always mean open to visitors. 34 acres are conservation easements, which are usually private land. Public access isn't recorded for 1 of 7 parcels. The places listed above are parks and preserves people visit.
Biking & sports
Bike routes, courts & fields
- Painted or protected bike lanes4.2 mi
- Off-road bike paths0.0 mi
- Shoulders & shared lanes0.0 mi
Courts & fields
- Tennis8
- Baseball2
- Soccer1
- Football1
Counts include school and college facilities, which aren't always open to the public.
Next door
Charleston and its neighbors
Towns whose outdoors data has been built so far.
Trail talk
Conditions & tips from neighbors
No recent posts about Charleston's trails yet. Muddy, icy, a bridge out, where to park: a quick post helps the next person.
Sources: trails, parks, preserves, courts and bike lanes © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), map data as of 2026-09-28. Conserved land: USGS Gap Analysis Project, Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US). Measured against the Census town boundary.
How we measure
"Trails" are OpenStreetMap paths, bridleways, public tracks and unpaved footways, plus footways inside a park or preserve or on a named trail route. Sidewalks are left out. Areas are counted on a 20-meter grid, so overlapping parcels count once. "Conserved" includes conservation easements, which protect land from development but are usually private property. Trailheads are the nearest marked trailhead, public parking lot or information board within about 150 meters of a preserve. Dog rules come from OpenStreetMap when someone has tagged them; otherwise we show what's typical for the land manager, or say the rules aren't recorded.