Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park — Attraction in Gainesville

Visited 07 Mar - 11 Mar to the Paynes Prairie Preserve campground. I only knew about this place because we drive through it on I75 on our way to Oleno State Park in February. After returning from that trip I looked up info on Paynes Prairie and somehow was able to book 4 nights at the campground (lucky I did). The park is absolutely gorgeous, with really large Oak's spread out through the campground. There is a lake with a concrete sidewalk leading to it from the campground. The lake has a picnic area and boat ramp, with a "amphitheater" seating area so you can watch the sunsets. However, if you walk to the lake trail just at the end of the parking lot there is a pier where you can get a wide open view of the lake. The lake trail will take you on a one mile hike to other trails, some of which leads to the visitor center. There, you can see a wide expanse of the prairie or walk the short distance to the viewing tower (3 story) where you can get an elevated view. From here, with binoculars (which unfortunately I did not have) you can view the wild hogs, wild horses, and wild bison. If you take the trail from the visitor center out to the prairie, you get a first-hand up close look at the alligators and above mentioned wildlife. We walked about 2.5 miles out but unfortunately did not see any. HOWEVER, we also drove across the prairie to the Gainesville side on SR441 and biked the Gainesville-hawthorne bike trail, a 15 mile wooded, paved bike path that is isolated from the roads. Gorgeous woods with a few small hills that will give you a nice workout. If you start from Boulware Springs Park like we did, almost immediately you will come to Lachua trail. A short walk down to the water and you will see tons of gators basking on the banks of the trail (beware: There is no fencing separating you from the gators, and for this reason pets are strictly prohibited). I counted over 50 gators there, and you could walk right up to them (if you were stupid brave). We also visited Micanopy, a historic town right outside the park. It is "the town that time forgot" and is where River and Joaquin Phoenix grew up. Doc Hollywood, The Yearling and Crooked River(?) were all filmed right in that little town. It is like visiting Mayberry from back in the 1950's. They have lots of antique shops and nice little places to eat. We chose to eat at Pearls Country Store and Barbecue and was not disappointed. Impression of the campground: There are around 50 RV sites in shaded areas with privacy between sites. No sewer connection, but there is a dump station on the way out. (Electric and water are at each site). There are also tent sites and they are very nice with plenty of separation from each other from what I could see. The bath house (two of them) were extremely clean and showers were nice and hot! I really enjoyed the trip there, and would recommend 3 nights minimum to see just the sites at the prairie. Looking forward to...

Just happened to be near the area of the park and decided to stop in and check it out. Nice long meandering roadway led us past multiple trails and natural sites but due to the extreme heat we were unable to see a lot of these attractions. We did, however, stop at the furthest point into the park which was the visitors center. Inside the center we were able to see life sized representations of the local wildlife which includes not only deer, wild hogs, waterfowl, snakes, and armadillos, but also a large shoulder mount of a real Bison which gives you the immense scale of the beast. We also were able to look out the back of the center through an all glass wall into a panoramic view the wetland plains. Spotting scopes were also available to scan the plains in search of the abundant wildlife. We were then able to enter a darkened room with a large screen playing a relaxing, peaceful video tour of the park. Breathtaking views along with a narrated tour help you to appreciate the beauty and delicate ecosystem that is slipping away in so many parts of our country. Luckily we still have this virtually untouched preserve that we can appreciate the same way the native people were able to appreciate it more than 2 centuries ago! Donations are accepted and encouraged to help keep this part of our prairie systems flourishing for our generation and generations to come. There's also a gift shop where you can take home a reminder of this untouched wonder! We were able to take a short walk down a paved trail to the left of the visitor center entrance where there is a large viewing tower which overlooks the prairie. The view.......Beautiful!! Florida at its rawest form! We plan to return during the cooler winter months to explore the trails and take in more of the beauty that this park provides. We definitely recommend that everyone visit this park and take in the beauty that...

Because the CG is so wooded I could barely get any satellite signal, and it cut out a lot because of tree branches blowing in the wind. We were only stopping in for a night on our way heading home. It was a relatively cheap (for Florida) site. Would not do more than one night because of connectivity issues. There is good privacy between sites, and sites were fairly easy to get into even at 30 feet. Bathrooms were dated and though clean the floors were very sandy all the time. The walkways are all flooded with sand, and it gets tracked inside. They don't clear off the walkways. There is an unmarked walkway which we discovered leads to the day use and boat ramp, as well as the playground. There are wooden boxes that have trash cans inside, but most aren't marked, they just look like storage bins. Nothing to indicate on most that there are trash cans inside. CG is about 1.5 miles from the entrance. There is a day use area about another 1.5 miles down the road with a visitor center. Don't take RV's there. And it's a long walk from the parking lot to the VC. The VC is ok, nice movie, but some of the exhibits are out of order. They have binoculars you could sign out if you forgot yours. There are some trails there, as well as a tower you can walk up to with views of the prairie. We only say wild horses. No bison. There are some other viewing areas, but you have to drive out of the entrance and drive down the highway to secondary entrances to view. We were only there for one night, so we didn't get to do that. Place would be good for 2 days but not much more. We camped at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park in a...