Devil’s Den Spring
TRAVEL BACK IN TIME AND SCUBA DIVE FLORIDA’S PREMIER PRE-HISTORIC SPRING
Florida Museum of Natural History and Butterfly Rainforest
Florida Museum of Natural History
University of Florida Cultural Plaza
3215 Hull Road
Gainesville, FL 32611-2710
Kanapaha Botanical Gardens
Kanapaha Botanical Gardens (Gainesville, Florida) is a 68 acre non profit facility comprised of 24 major collections visually accessible from a 1 ½ mile paved walkway.
Paynes Prairie Preserve – Florida State Parks
Far from the Far West, herds of wild horses and bison roam the prairie in this surprisingly diverse preserve south of Gainesville.
Paynes Prairie is unique in many ways. Nowhere else in Florida can visitors experience wild-roaming bison and horses. Nearly 300 species of birds also frequent the park along with alligators, deer and many other animals.
La Chua Trail at Paynes Prairie
There are a handful of places that stand out as excellent locations for wildlife watching in Florida, but the best place to see alligators is in the home of the Gators, Gainesville, Florida
Located at the north end of Paynes Prairie, the La Chua Trail is an excellent wildlife watching site, with an elevated boardwalk and lengthy dike out to an observation tower.
Paynes Prairie is a massive landform in North Florida visited and written about by William Bartram in 1774, with an unusual twist for a prairie. It has a drain.
Sweetwater Wetlands Park
Sweetwater Wetlands Park is not only a place to connect with nature, it’s a way to protect our environment. The park, which consists of more than 125 acres of wetlands and ponds, was created to improve the water quality of wetlands in Paynes Prairie and the Floridan Aquifer.
Now a thriving habitat, Sweetwater Wetlands Park is filled with vast numbers of plants and animals, including birds, butterflies, alligators and Florida cracker horses. At the park, you can walk more than 3.5 miles of crushed gravel trails and boardwalks, experience the lush landscape from viewing platforms, and learn about the habitat through educational signs and tours.
Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park
In the midst of North Florida’s sandy terrain and pine forests, a bowl-shaped cavity 120 feet deep leads down to a miniature rain forest. Small streams trickle down the steep slopes of the limestone sinkhole, disappearing through crevices in the ground. Lush vegetation thrives in the shade of the walls even in dry summers.
Samuel P Harn Museum of Art
The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida is an 112,800-square-foot-facility, which includes 40,400 square feet of exhibition space, 5 garden spaces, a 250-seat auditorium, study center, museum store, café and classroom spaces. The Harn’s collection totals more than 13,300 objects including African, Asian, modern and contemporary art, and photography with significant representations of Ancient American and oceanic art, as well as a growing collection of natural history works on paper.