Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park Campground

I travelled here with a 35’ 5th wheel, long bed pickup and parked in site #14, an E/W (30A), BI site for $29/night. The roads were asphalt and the site was sand and gravel. The road was moderately tight in spots. I needed to go into the site across the road to get backed into #14 properly. There is plenty of room to do so. The sites are generally large and have foliage between them for privacy. There is also lots of shade. It is a very quiet campground. The bathhouses are clean with hot showers. The Hosts work very hard to keep the sites clean and leaves blown off them. The site was very level and no adjustments were needed. I had 2-3 bars LTE with Verizon, no wifi and several OTA channels. It was really easy to go into Gainesville for supplies. The park has a lovely visitor’s center and several hiking trails. FLSP did a controlled burn while I was there to help minimize forest fire threats. Eat at the Blue Highway just down the road from the park. Great pizza! The park also allowed me to receive packages there. I would definitely come back. I would choose a site on the outside of the loop. I think #18 is the best (location, easy of entry, privacy) with #48 being second. Other good sites for large rigs are 17, 42, 46, and 50 (even though it is close to the trash.)

A beautiful park with plenty to do if you love the outdoors. Lots of potential for hiking and biking, fishing and boating, and spacious campsites. Has a pretty reasonable cost, especially for Florida. Highly recommended to see the historical information at the visitor's center and then go to the observation tower. Bring binoculars and a camera! Very clean bath house and helpful staff throughout the park.

This campground is a pretty weekend spot or a good place to stop over traveling through Florida. Sites were private and wooded.

We have a Pepwave Max Transit Duo for AT&T and Verizon service. AT&T had download speeds of 17.87 and upload speeds of 3.17. Verizon was 8.1 for downloads and 1.36 for uploads. Our Mifi with T-Moble had download speeds of 9.02 and uploads of 1.05. My job is 100% zoom meetings. Connectivity was occasionally an issue, especially during storms.

We've been meaning to stop in this park for years, and finally did - and wish we had come sooner! It's a lovely park with nicely spaced and shaded campsites.

There's some nice hike/bike trails and the prairie to explore (was too hot/sunny during our stay), and nice overlook tower you can climb for a view.

And glorious cellular signal on all of the carriers - we were able to host multiple live broadcasts with blazing fast speeds. Too many trees to even bother getting the Starlink out.

(Price reflects base $18 price, $7 utility fee, $6.70 reserve fee and tax.. )

Easy access from I-75 and Rt 441, 2 miles to campground from ranger station. Road in the campground needs some work (potholes). Pretty tight inside campground but rigs up to 40 feet made it in. Bathrooms are nice, typical for Florida state parks. No laundry. Sites are adequately spaced, trees in between. Sites are hard packed dirt, almost like a concrete pad, our site was dead level. Our 50 amp electrical service and water pressure were fine. Some sites are 50 amp, some 30.

Lots of hiking in the park and in the area. Did not see any bison or wild horses during our stay,but lots of alligators and birds.

Grocery stores and restaurants are only a few miles away. No road noise from highway, just birds singing.

AT&T cell service was good, 3 bars of 5G, -105 RSPR unboosted, streamed with no problem. Several local HDTV channels.

We had a great weekend at Paynes Prairie, even though it rained most of the time and that limited what we could do. The park ranger greeted us and gave us maps of the park and the campground, and specific directions to the campground. The campground is neat, with good-sized sites for every type of RV. Tent area has parking and walk-in to the tent sites. Sites are bordered by palmetto, oak trees, and some pines. Our site was level with a firmly-packed limerock base. We had a fire ring, picnic table, and a lantern post. Bath house was clean and had plenty of room in the individual shower stalls. The observation tower was an unexpected treat, as we saw many bison, several horses, plenty of birds, and one deer hanging out on the prairie. The path from the parking lot to the observation tower was concrete with and ADA-compliant ramp. The vistors center was not staffed on the day we visited, which was our only disappointment. There are many trails through the park. There is a trail from the campground to a playground and the boat ramp. We wanted to check out the fishing pier on the lake but weather changed our plans. The best thing about this state park is the feeling you get when you reconnect with nature.

What most people said we agree with about the camping facilities. We did find the road noise from I - 10 annoying during parts of the day. We live in the country, so we notice things like this. Note, no laundry facilities at this park.

The park is convenient to Gainesville for shopping and attractions. There are enough paved roads in the part for a ride on a bike. The Gainesville - Hawthorne Railtrail is on the north side of the park. We enjoyed a paddle on Cross Creek next to the historic site of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who wrote The Yearling. You can visit the homestead. Note this is a popular fishing g area and there are airboats, so I wouldn’t paddle here on the weekend. Micanopy is worth a walk about.