South of Gainesville the ground opens into a treeless grass basin that floods and drains with the season. Paynes Prairie Preserve is wrapped around it, and the campground sits back in heavy shade on the Micanopy side, near Lake Wauburg. Florida made this its first state preserve in 1971, the federal government named it a National Natural Landmark three years later, and more than 30 miles of trail run off the rim into it. Get the site before you get the van. It is the one public campground in Gainesville, it stays open all year, and the van is the booking that can still be moved.
The visitor center has a 50-foot observation tower, and what people climb it for is the bison herd and the wild horses that live out on the basin. In winter the cranes come in and the rim trails get busy with people carrying binoculars. Lake Wauburg has a ramp for canoes, kayaks, and small boats with electric motors, so a paddle fits into an afternoon without moving the van.
Sites are limerock back-ins, each with a lantern post, a fire ring with a grill, and a picnic table, with water and electric close by, hot showers in the restrooms, and a central dump station. Two things to check before you book. Most of the RV sites are 30-amp and only a few are 50-amp, and there is no sewer at the pad.
The posted length cap is 58 feet, which nothing you rent as a campervan is going to trouble, though the amps and the length both start to matter if you size up to an RV. Camping runs $18 a night plus tax, RV sites add a $7 nightly utility fee, and the reservation fee is a nonrefundable $6.70, as of August 2026.
The gate is locked at sunset and registered campers get the combination, so rolling in late is a plan rather than a problem.
Gators home weekends and RV City at Lot 78
On a home Saturday the university runs the city. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is sunk into the ground with the decks going straight up around the field, which is why the noise has nowhere to go and why the place got the name The Swamp. Tailgates go up across campus from Friday on, and rigs are part of that.
None of it is a campground, though, and campus RV parking is not something you reserve. The University Athletic Association hands its RV spots to Gator Boosters at certain giving levels, and the pass gets scanned on the way in.
Gators RV City at Lot 78, out at Florida Park, is the only Athletic Association RV lot that allows an overnight stay, and every other UAA RV lot has to be cleared at the end of the game. RV City opens Friday at 4pm and nothing is let in before then, and the overnight window runs to noon Sunday. Motor homes are required to run exhaust extensions or smoke stacks.
Both plans run on the same calendar, and that is the part that catches people out. Home Saturdays are when campervans around Gainesville get spoken for, and the prairie campground fills on those same dates, booked by people who are not going near Lot 78. If the weekend you want is a home weekend, take the site first and the van right behind it, and be clear about which of the two plans you are on before either booking goes in.
If you are not a booster, RV parking questions go to UF Transportation and Parking Services at 352-392-8048. Boosters go through Gator Boosters at 800-344-2867, option 3, or the lot office at 352-375-4683 on weekdays.
O'Leno State Park and the Santa Fe River
When the prairie campground is full, the next public pad is north at O'Leno, on the Santa Fe River about six miles above High Springs. It is also the base people use for an Ichetucknee day. The Ichetucknee is a float. You get in at the top with a tube and the spring run carries you down through the trees, and since camping is not permitted inside that park, the sleeping happens at O'Leno.
Camping there is split between two loops, Magnolia and Dogwood, 61 sites with water and electric, an in-ground grill and picnic table at each one, a restroom in the middle, and a dump station off the main park drive. Electric is a mix of 30 and 50 amp, the length cap is 50 feet, and sites 4 in Magnolia and 47 in Dogwood are the accessible ones.
Keep going northwest and the Suwannee takes over, which is what Live Oak is for.
Devil's Millhopper and Cross Creek
Devil's Millhopper is in town on the north side, a 120-foot sinkhole with a stairway down the wall into a green bowl where small streams come off the sides. There is no camping, and it does not need a whole day.
Southeast of the prairie at Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings kept the farmhouse where she wrote The Yearling, and the state runs it as a historic site you can walk through. Micanopy on the way there is a few blocks of old storefronts under oaks.
South of that, Ocala and its springs are their own base, and the rest of the state is on the Florida campervan hub.