At Ginnie Springs the bank of the Santa Fe is lined with divers' tanks, propped above a spring that boils up from the bottom. By midday the river fills with tubes drifting downstream under cypress and live oak, and the water is clear enough that each one drags a shadow across the sand. Families come out past High Springs for that rhythm and stay the week, the motorhome parked back from the river with the air conditioning running through the hottest hours.
Ginnie's water-and-electric sites sit across from the general store, none of them on the riverbank, so every day starts with a walk down to the water carrying tubes and masks. That trade is worth it in a Florida summer, when an afternoon nap in a plugged-in rig does more for tired kids than a waterfront view would. If the trip starts late in the day, Santa Fe Palms RV Resort and Gainesville RV Park give you a night in town first, so you reach Ginnie with a full day ahead.
The rest of springs country fills the days off the Santa Fe. Gilchrist Blue Springs is next door, the Ichetucknee has its own tubing run, and O'Leno State Park sits on the same river. On the drive back toward Gainesville at the end of the week, Paynes Prairie and the sinkhole at Devil's Millhopper make a good last morning out. Two people who would rather sleep at O'Leno itself can do that river in something smaller, and the Gainesville campervan page covers that trip.
Gatornationals week at Gainesville Raceway
Every March the NHRA's Gatornationals take over Gainesville Raceway north of town, and the pasture campground around the strip spends the week under burnout smoke and the smell of nitro fuel. Motorhomes line up along the strip from midweek on, close enough that a top fuel launch rattles the cabinets. For a lot of Gainesville, this is the loudest week of the year, and the people who come back every spring come back in a rig.
The raceway's motorhome corral runs from the Wednesday before the race to the Monday after, with no hookups, a vendor for fresh water and pump-outs, and a limited number of spaces arranged through the track office, as of October 2026. Two miles south at CR 225 and NE 77th Avenue, the Alachua County Gatornationals RV Campground opens for race week only, first come first served, with a limited number of back-in water sites.
Race week lands in the same March stretch as spring break on the Santa Fe, so the Gatornationals crowd and the Ginnie Springs crowd are after the same motorhomes and the same pads. Lock the corral space or the Ginnie site first, then book the rig, and if the plan is both, treat it as one trip with one set of dates. Gainesville's other big crowd is fall football, and Gators home weekends with RV City at Lot 78 are on the Gainesville campervan page.
Manatee Springs at Chiefland, November to March
On a cold winter morning the manatees come up the spring run at Manatee Springs State Park, gray shapes moving slowly under the boardwalk in clear water that turns tannin-dark where the run meets the Suwannee River. The park is at Chiefland, and the manatees make it a winter trip, November to March. Ginnie Springs is in its off-season through the same months, so a winter week can split between the Santa Fe and the Suwannee.
Reserve the state park campsite before you book the motorhome, and check the site's listed length against the rig when you do. Silver Springs, the glass-bottom-boat spring outside Ocala, is the other famous spring within reach of Gainesville, and the Ocala campervan page covers it.