A Quintessential College Town In Florida Is Full Of State Parks, Art, And Historic Museums

Gainesville, Florida, is a quintessential college town in that much of its population consists of students and faculty members. The city is home to the oldest and largest university in the state, the University of Florida (UF), which had over 61,000 students enrolled in the fall 2023 semester. The local community college, Santa Fe College, also had over 14,000 students enrolled in fall 2023. That's 75,000-plus students in a town of around 145,000 people, per the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Yet there's more to Gainesville than just college life, as I can attest from having lived there without going to school there.

In Gainesville, travelers will find two state parks, a thriving arts scene, and a treasure trove of museum history. This is the birthplace of the Gatorade sports drink, the football stomping ground of the Florida Gators, and the hometown of Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty, who immortalized Gainesville in several songs. Other famous one-time residents include actor River Phoenix, comedian Maya Rudolph, and quarterback Tim Tebow.

Gators may be the team mascot, but they're not the only wildlife in town, either. If you can't make it to Austin, Texas, to see the world's largest urban bat colony take to the skies, Gainesville might hold the next best thing. The world's largest occupied bat houses are on the UF campus, just across the street from Lake Alice. Each evening, onlookers gather to see roughly half a million bats take flight there after sunset.

Another wild animal that you might be surprised to see in the Gainesville area is the bison. The grassy wetland of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park is the only place in Florida where they still roam freely, along with Spanish horses and the requisite alligators. The park has eight hiking trails and a 50-foot observation tower to help you survey the prairie basin, which formed out of sinkholes. Across town, in Devil's Millhopper Geological State Park, you can descend a boardwalk and actually explore a giant sinkhole in this one-of-a-kind state park.

The Florida Museum of Natural History and its Butterfly Rainforest (where butterflies feed on fruit trays) are listed as Gainesville's top two attractions on Tripadvisor, based on traveler favorites. The main museum, located in Powell Hall on the University of Florida campus, will temporarily close for a large-scale expansion project in late March 2025. However, it's expected to reopen sometime in 2026, at which time you should be able to enjoy its free permanent exhibits again, such as the Hall of Florida Fossils.

Visitors are greeted by a row of shark jaws, including those that once belonged to an enormous, prehistoric Megalodon. Some of the other 500 fossils in this exhibit, which cover the 65 million years on Earth since the dinosaurs went extinct, were discovered during the construction of I-75. That same interstate is how you'll likely reach Gainesville unless you fly into its regional airport. The nearest international airport is in Jacksonville.

The Florida Museum of Natural History isn't the only Gainesville museum that might be worth checking out on a rainy day — or anytime, really. Downtown, at the Matheson History Museum, you can learn more about the development of Alachua County and the University of Florida. The museum's collection includes more than 20,000 postcards from every county in the Sunshine State.

Head to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention for an exhibit on the history of Gatorade. A team of inventors, led by UF professor Dr. James Robert Cade, first began testing the drink out on the university's football squad in 1965. Together, they devised the drink as a solution to the problem of sweat loss during exercise. It all began with an offhand question: "Why don't football players ever urinate during a game?" This sparked the idea for a sports drink that would replenish the electrolytes in athletes' bodies.

Given that backstory, it's appropriate that the Cade Museum even features a restroom exhibit about the history of soap, the flush toilet, and plumber Thomas Crapper (yes, this was his real name). Wash up, of course, before trying out some of the museum's hands-on activities, like a slime-making lab, 3D printing, and other interactive experiences meant to foster "purposeful creativity." The Cade Museum is located in Depot Park, an erstwhile train hub that now serves as a public park with a splash pad and locomotive-themed playground equipment for kids.

Since 2015, many murals have sprung up around Gainesville as part of the public art project, 352walls, which was named for the city's area code. Among them are several Tom Petty murals, since this is where the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter grew up and attended high school with fellow rock legends Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and Bernie Leadon and Don Felder (of the Eagles). In Gainesville, Petty also has a park and even a punny sandwich named after him. It's called the Tom Petty Melt, and you can order it at The Top on Main Street.

Fans of the Florida Gators are known to break out in sing-alongs of Petty's "I Won't Back Down" during home football games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Over at Lillian's Music Store (now a bar, formerly an actual store), you can sing karaoke in the same place where Petty crooned about buying Black Diamond guitar strings in the song "Dreamville." To score a Petty album on vinyl, try browsing Hear Again Records on SE Second Avenue.

Originally a post office, then a courthouse, and now Florida's official state theater, the Hippodrome (or the "Hipp") is another place where you can experience some culture in Gainesville. Beneath its stately Corinthian columns is a cinema that shows arthouse films as well as a theater that hosts Broadway and off-Broadway productions. The building's hand-operated elevator is under renovation until summer 2025. Its art gallery has been known to participate in the monthly Artwalk Gainesville event.

If you need a place to stay in Gainesville, the Sweetwater Branch Inn — a bed-and-breakfast dating to 1885 — has private cottages and two restored Victorian mansions with a dozen guest suites. One of the mansions, the McKenzie House, is on the National Register of Historic Places for both its Queen Anne-style architecture and its significance to Gainesville's growing prosperity in the late 19th century. Situated downtown, just a mile from the Cade Museum, the pet-friendly inn now spans two acres.

Garden paths lined with fountains lead from the house to the cottages, while gazebos, verandas, porches, and patios give the property an airy, Southern feel. It's the kind of place where you might see someone sipping lemonade or fanning themselves on a rocking chair as you stroll the grounds. Each morning, guests can enjoy a complimentary buffet breakfast with homemade dishes like French toast casserole.

The Sweetwater Branch Inn also has a service where staff will pack you a picnic basket for two if you're headed outdoors for the day. Even if you spend the night in another local hotel, you can make a reservation for brunch at the inn before you hit the road out of Gainesville. For a local souvenir, try the Artisans' Guild Gallery, which bills itself as "the city's only source for regionally-produced handmade fine arts and crafts." Gainesville is also only a 40-mile drive from Ichetucknee Springs, where you can visit another underrated state park known for tubing adventures.