Camping at Paynes Prairie State Park, Micanopy, Florida

We headed out for a 6-day trip (5 nights) – no, not a three hour tour!  Our trip started with a 1- night stop at Paynes Prairie State Park located in Micanopy, Florida.  I’ve heard about this park for years – and you drive through it when you head north on Interstate 75 in Florida – but we had never stopped.  This time we did and I’m so glad!  I thought, well, it’s Paynes Prairie, so the campground is going to be hot and full sun – but I was wrong!  The campground is wonderful and shaded – the prairie portion of the park is a short drive from the campground.

Park Details

Address: 100 Savannah Boulevard, Micanopy, FL 32667

Phone: Ranger – 352.466.3397 Visitor Center 352.466.4100

Open 8am until sundown year round

Campsite Details

We stayed in campsite #18.  This campsite was not real large, but big enough for us with our 17 foot teardrop.  The site was shady.

Water/Electric (has dump station)

30amp for our site – these campsites have either 30amp or 50amp but not both so check when you book to make sure you are getting the correct amperage

Picnic table, Fire ring (fire ban in Florida right now)

Back in sites

Shady

Bathrooms/showers

Check-in is 3pm

Checkout is 1pm

Quiet hours from 11pm till 7am

They do have several local channels that can be received using an antenna

First Hike

Typically our ‘first hike’ is a walk through the campground to check out where everything is – never know when you might need that bath house in a hurry!  The dogs love doing this first walk because they get to check out the area we have stopped at.  The bath house was very close, so we just did a ‘functional walk’ for this short walk and then did a longer walk later in the afternoon when it was a little cooler.

Our first walk started just past our campsite and took us to the Lake Trail.  We walked this paved trail down to some of the day use areas including the boat ramp.

Early Morning walk

Since we had 1 night and would soon be on our way to another park, I decided that we should do more of an explore mode to see what the park has to offer and then try to come back in the future and stay more than 1 night.  So, we decided to drive over towards the Visitor Center and see what this area was like.  On our way to the visitor center we spotted some deer.

The tree canopy is beautiful at this time of year as we drove from the campground over to the visitor center.

  Upon getting out of the truck I noticed this beautiful moth sitting on the sidewalk.

The path from the parking lot to the visitor center is paved and takes you for a nice shady tree canopy walk.

Behind the visitor center - entrance to the prairie area and signs of importance posted.

A word of caution before you enter towards the prairie....and all the important information before you think about embarking on hiking this trail.

After all the signs posted behind the visitor center about the prairie trail, we decided to take this short .3 mile shady trail (Wachahoota trail) that is where the observation tower is located.  The photo above is what we saw from the bottom of the observation tower.

Maps

This photograph is the map on display at the parking lot that leads to the visitor center.

To view all photographs from this camping stop, click here.