The Silver River comes out of the ground clear and stays that way, and people have been looking down at the limestone through the floor of a boat here for well over a century. Rhesus macaques live along the banks, and you usually hear them before you see them. The campground is inside the same state park, over on the Ocala side, away from the headsprings gate and the crowd that goes with it. Book a site there before you book the van. Fifty-nine pads is the whole public supply in Ocala, so those dates come first and the van gets matched to them.
They are split between two loops, Fort King and Sharpes Ferry, behind the camping and museum entrance at 1425 NE 58th Ave, with a 50-foot ceiling on vehicle length. Water and electric reach every site with both 30-amp and 50-amp service, some sites have sewer, and a dump station covers the ones that do not.
Florida State Parks holds the reservations for both loops, and the 50-foot ceiling on the confirmation is what sizes the rental you go looking for next. The address on that confirmation is the camping entrance at 1425 NE 58th Ave, not the headsprings gate out on SR-40, and the difference matters as soon as anyone other than you is driving to the site. Juniper Springs has no hookups and Rainbow Springs in Dunnellon takes its own reservation, so neither is a fallback you slide into once Fort King and Sharpes Ferry fill.
Florida State Parks puts a site at $24 a night plus tax, with a nonrefundable $6.70 reservation fee and a $7 nightly utility fee on RV units, as of August 2026. The park runs 8 a.m. to sundown, 365 days, and day admission at the gate is $8 a vehicle for two to eight people. Check-in is 3 p.m., check-out is 1 p.m., and quiet hours start at 11 p.m.
In July the good hours out here are the early ones, and the 50-amp service earns its keep every afternoon.
Paddling the Silver River
The campground has its own canoe and kayak launch, roughly 1.8 miles downstream of the headsprings, and getting a boat to the water means a 0.6-mile portage along the river trail. Campers pay nothing extra to use it, though a float plan has to be filled out at the ranger station first. Both launches are paddle only, so the run stays quiet.
Nobody swims here and nobody fishes here. Fishing and swimming are prohibited at the springs and along the river, which is the whole reason the water still looks like that.
The launch at the main entrance on SR-40 runs $4 a vessel as of August 2026, and a camper tag covers that gate along with the launch fee.
The Fort King and Sharpes Ferry loops
Sites come with a fire ring, a grill and a picnic table, firewood is sold at the ranger station, and there is laundry for registered campers. Fort King and Sharpes Ferry are both shaded, which in north central Florida is the difference between sleeping and not.
Every trail in the park is open. The one thing shut is the Sea Hunt Deck, closed since Oct. 23, 2025. The equestrian entrance and the canoe launch both close 90 minutes before the park does, so an afternoon paddle wants a watch.
Juniper Springs in the Ocala National Forest
East of Silver Springs, SR-40 leaves the pasture behind and runs into the national forest, and Juniper Springs is where you get the swim this trip is otherwise missing. The pool the CCC built there holds 72 degrees year round, and it sits in the day-use area rather than off in the woods somewhere.
Three camping loops, no hookups at any of them, and hot showers, flush toilets and a dump station. Coming from town it is straight out SR-40, and from the SR-19 junction the entrance is 4.5 miles back west on the north side of the road.
The boardwalk stays closed, a combination of age and hurricane damage, and Juniper Run is a 7-mile wilderness paddle rather than a beginner's float, so it is a day of its own instead of something you add after a swim.
If the missing hookups are the problem, the campground at Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon, west of Ocala, has water, electric and sewer at every RV site, and registered campers can swim and fish there. Getting into the main headsprings entrance has needed a day-use reservation since April 2026, and the park shuts to everyone once that gate fills.
Gainesville, Live Oak, and Lakeland
Ocala sits in the middle of three other bases with public campgrounds of their own. Gainesville is north on the rim of Paynes Prairie, Live Oak is northwest on the Suwannee, and Lakeland is south at the top of the Green Swamp. The rest of the state is on the Florida hub.