Gainesville Packages/Deals & Travel Agents Near Me

Overview

Introduction

Gainesville's subtle landscape offers more than stereotypical Florida scenery. Visitors to Gainesville will see palm trees, yes, but also massive live-oak trees draped with hanging moss. The city's tree canopy creates a comforting and inclusive atmosphere for visitors, making Gainesville less a city with a view than a city in a forest.

Visitor attractions such as freshwater springs, pristine rivers and Paynes Prairie—a 21,000-acre/8,500-hectare nature preserve that supports a range of wildlife, including bison—are within a 30-minute drive of Gainesville's center.

On the weekends, visitors to Gainesville will see cars with kayaks and bicycles strapped on. Gainesville has 80 mi/130 km of bike lanes and trails—more than any other Florida city—and has received a silver award from the League of American Bicyclists for being such a bicycle-friendly place.

There's both a pleasant, small-town feel in Gainesville and lively nightlife centered on the University of Florida and its more than 50,000 students. A progressive, eclectic gem, Gainesville draws artists and intellectuals, scientists and musicians, healers and entrepreneurs. And it offers a refuge for visitors fleeing southern Florida's more developed strip-mall-and-subdivision regions.

Restaurants, galleries and bars dot Gainesville's downtown, which abuts historic residential districts. It has its growing pains—traffic can be formidable—but, overall, smart urban planning and streetscapes make for an attractive, if sprawling, travel destination.

Must See or Do

Sights—Florida Museum of Natural History; Baughman Center on Lake Alice; Kanapaha Botanical Gardens; Devil's Millhopper; Alachua Sink in the fall and spring to see alligators sunning in the wild; writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' home in Cross Creek.

Memorable Meals—Pizza and salad at Satchel's Pizza; ribs at Newberry Backyard Barbecue; a New York strip steak at Mildred's Big City Food; a banana split at Floyd's Diner.

Late Night—Line dancing at 8 Seconds; a play at the Hippodrome State Theatre; a beer at Market Street Pub.

Recreation—Biking along the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail; tubing or kayaking down the Ichetucknee River; hiking trails through Paynes Prairie; GAWK, the monthly downtown gallery walk.

Especially for Kids—Santa Fe Community College Teaching Zoo; helping with farm chores during Living History Days at Morningside Nature Center; looking for creekside fossils at Alfred A. Ring Park.

Geography

Gainesville's sprawling landscape leaves few compact areas and almost no natural landmarks to help you navigate. The streets form a grid system divided into quadrants (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest), with the starting point at University Avenue and Main Street—the old center of town. Streets, terraces and drives run north to south; avenues, places, lanes and roads run east to west.

Major east-west arteries include Archer Road and University Avenue. Chain restaurants and shopping centers line Archer Road west of Southwest 34th Street to Interstate 75. University Avenue leads to the University of Florida at Southwest 13th Street and to downtown Gainesville at Main Street. The downtown area boasts a high concentration of great restaurants. Plaza Royale and the Oaks Mall are located along Newberry Road, west of 34th Street. (University Avenue eventually turns into Newberry Road as you travel west.)

There are several small neighboring towns just outside Gainesville, including Ocala (best known for its horse farms), Cross Creek, Alachua, Newberry and High Springs.

History

Gainesville emerged as an agricultural center. Before it was settled, the town and its surrounding areas—especially Paynes Prairie—were home to the Timucuan tribe. William Bartram, now known as America's first naturalist, trekked to the area in 1774 and later wrote about its plants and environment. The Spanish ran the largest cattle-herding operation in the state on Paynes Prairie in the early 1800s. The prairie eventually turned into a lake that supported steamboat travel.

The town was officially founded in 1853. The railroad linking Fernandina on the east coast of Florida and Cedar Key on the west coast was refashioned to bypass Newnansville, the county seat at the time. Farmers shipped their goods via train to coastal and northern markets. A determined group of residents banded together to charter a new town along the railroad line, which they named for Gen. Edmund Gaines, victorious commander in the Second Seminole War (1835-42).

The University of Florida opened in 1906, gradually changing its focus from agriculture to education. Today, the university is the main employer in Alachua County.

Potpourri

The Florida Bat Center at the University of Florida is the largest in the world, with a population of 100,000 Brazilian free-tailed and Southeastern bats.

Dr. Robert Cade invented the sports drink Gatorade while a researcher at the University of Florida. As a result, the university receives a share of every sale.

According to the Weather Research Center, Gainesville is the second most humid city in the U.S., with an average 93% humidity in the morning and 60% in the afternoon.

A popular local 1960s band later became international rock stars—as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The annual Gator Bowl football game is played not in Gainesville, as you might expect, but in Jacksonville.