Florida Traveler ◊ Florida Day Trips, Discounts and Discoveries

Florida Springs

Homosassa Springs – Mantee Viewing Turned Inside Out

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HOMOSASSA SPRINGS, FL — If swimming with manatees is not your style, one of the best ways to enjoy them up close is at Homosassa Springs. Here they’ve taken the idea of a fishbowl and turned it inside out. Instead of peering into an aquarium, the  Fish Bowl (or “Peoplebowl” as it’s sometimes called) invites [...]

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Silver Springs History on Display at Silver River Museum

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Silver Springs, FL — How long has Silver Springs been a Florida attraction? Depends on how you reckon it, but people have been coming here for a long time indeed. About 10,000 years ago, the Timucuan Indians gathered at the headwaters of the Silver River to hunt Columbian Mammoths. In the mid 1950s, the lovely [...]

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3 Refreshing Day Trips near High Springs

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HIGH SPRINGS, FL — Looking for a great place to cool down as the weather heats up?  Why not head to High Springs, Florida?  After a morning of shopping for crafts and antiques in the historic downtown, you can spend the afternoon at one of several parks along the scenic Santa Fe River. Here’s a [...]

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Rainbow River Tubing: An Existential Adventure

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They say that any dead fish can float downstream. But so what? If we discovered a live fish that managed to float downstream of its own volition, choosing the simple pleasure of idleness on a sunny afternoon above the sisyphean drudgery of fighting the ceaseless current, we’d applaud that fish as a first-rate existentialist. That [...]

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Manatee Springs State Park: Chiefland, Florida

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CHIEFLAND, FL — When naturalist William Bartram visited Manatee Springs in the  late 1700s, he said the place was astonishing: “This charming nymphaeum is the product of primitive nature, not to be imitated, much less equaled, by the united effort of human power and ingenuity!” Two centuries later, much of that beauty remains. “Two hundred [...]

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Alexander Springs – Ocala’s Pre-Historic Swimming Hole

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You won’t be the first to discover the delightful swimming hole at Alexander Springs. People have been enjoying this idyllic and refreshing spring form at least 10,000 years. Its ancient residents, the Timucuan Indians, enjoyed the springs for the same reason people go today: “It was a place where they would go swimming and recreate,” [...]

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Silver Glen Springs: A Scenic Jewel of Ocala National Forest

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If you can manage to get the place to yourself — and it is possible, but not on busy weekends or holidays — there are few better places to enjoy the unspoiled beauty of Ocala National Forest than Silver Glen Springs. From the comfortable lawn surrounding the spring, under a gentle shade of Spanish moss, [...]

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DeLeon Springs: Pancake Breakfast at the Fountain of Youth

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Not sure if this is how it worked for Ponce De Leon, but here’s another refreshing and youthful way to enjoy a hot summer day in central Florida: Start off the morning with hot pancakes at the Old Spanish Sugar Mill at DeLeon Springs State Park in Deland, Florida. The kids (and the kid in [...]

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Blue Spring State Park: A Winter Haven for Manatees

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The earliest review of Blue Spring gave the place an 18th-century version of thumbs down. Naturalist John Bartram visited Blue Spring in January of 1766, and found a “surprising fountain … the colour of the sea, [that] smelled like bilge water, tasting sweetish and loathsome.” Fortunately for modern travelers, the chemistry of the spring has changed [...]

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Wakulla Springs – ‘Mysteries of Strange Water’

At Wakulla Springs, Florida’s mysterious, primordial beauty has been preserved in a rustic, 1940s-era setting. The place has always been a tourist attraction, but commercialism is kept a minimum. Financier Edward Ball built a Spanish-style lodge and resort here in 1937, and the state took over control just a few years ago. All along, the [...]

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