Silver Springs State Park sits just east of Ocala off State Road 40, and from the moment you pull in, it's clear this is not your typical Florida roadside
stop. Long before Disney World existed, Silver Springs was one of Florida's original tourist destinations — drawing visitors as far back as the 1870s, when steamboats would ferry guests up the Silver River to witness the crystal-clear springs firsthand. What you're visiting today carries a century and a half of history beneath its glassy surface.
The Glass-Bottom Boat Tour
This is the main event and it absolutely delivers. We booked the 1:30 pm 90-minute tour on a Wednesday, about a week out in advance — and I'd strongly recommend doing the same. Advanced reservations are highly encouraged; the boats can sell out, especially on weekends. We were there in mid-April and ours was full. There's also a shorter 30-minute option if you're pressed for time, but do yourself a favor and take the 90-minute version.
Our tour guide was exceptional — genuinely fun, knowledgeable, and clearly someone who loves what they do. That matters a lot on a tour like this, and ours made the whole experience. As for the water itself — it is something else. Silver Springs is actually a group of over 30 individual springs feeding the Silver River, with the main headspring — called Mammoth Spring — featuring a vent opening about 5 feet high and 135 feet wide beneath a limestone ledge, at a depth of about 30 feet. Looking down through the glass bottom into that opening is one of those moments that's hard to describe. It's impossibly clear — like looking through air, not water.
The water immediately reminded me of the Rainbow River, which I've SCUBA dived several times. Rainbow River is about 20 miles southwest of Ocala, so the two are practically neighbors, and they share that same stunning spring-fed clarity. If you've done one and loved it, the other belongs on your list.
Along the tour you'll float over a Native American dugout canoe preserved on the river bottom, and you'll also see three sunken Greek statues — props left behind from the filming of the 1960s TV show I Spy that were eventually cleaned by a dedicated dive team and are now fully visible from the surface. The tour ends with a breathtaking view over Mammoth Spring itself. We spotted alligators, great blue herons, turtles, and no shortage of fish. Manatees are also commonly seen on the tour, and lucky visitors may spot the park's famous resident rhesus monkeys. We were not among the lucky ones — but more on that in a moment.
One unfortunate note on our part: I accidentally left the good camera with the zoom lens back home in South Carolina, which meant this whole adventure is a bit light on great photos. Lesson learned for next time.
Hollywood's Favorite Swimming Hole
In the 1930s, Hollywood discovered Silver Springs, and over the years scenes from at least 20 movies were filmed here — including Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean, Distant Drums with Gary Cooper, the James Bond film Moonraker, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and six Tarzan films. Two different James Bonds actually filmed here: Sean Connery fought a diver underwater in Thunderball (1965), while Roger Moore wrestled a snake in the springs for Moonraker in 1979. The TV series Sea Hunt was also filmed here, and ABC Television owned the park from 1962 to 1984, during which time they added the sister attraction Wild Waters and expanded the infrastructure to try to keep pace with the exploding Orlando theme park market. Eventually, Disney and the mega-parks won that battle, and Silver Springs fell on hard times before ultimately becoming a state park.
The Monkey Story
No visit to Silver Springs is complete without the monkey story, and it is a good one.
Back in 1938, a local boat captain named Colonel Tooey operated a "Jungle Cruise" boat tour — predating the Disney version — and wanted to spice up the experience for his guests. He purchased a handful of rhesus macaques from a primate dealer in New York and released them onto a small island within the Silver River, which he named "Monkey Island." The idea was sound in theory: put monkeys on an island, let guests view them from the boats, and since monkeys can't swim, they stay put. Simple.
There was one problem. Rhesus macaques are excellent swimmers. Within hours of their release, the monkeys swam off the island and disappeared into the surrounding forests. To replace them, Tooey procured six more monkeys. They, too, escaped like the previous batch. By the 1980s, the monkey population had grown to over one hundred and counting. Today they number in the hundreds, roaming freely along the Silver River — occasionally spotted on the boat tour, occasionally not. We came up empty, but they are out there. We will be back.
Beyond the Boats
The glass-bottom tour is the headliner but far from the only thing to do. You can kayak the five-mile Silver River, explore the Silver River Museum and Pioneer Village, and choose from both solo and tandem paddleboard experiences. A company called Wet Rabbit Kayaks offers guided tours in glass-bottom kayaks, paddling through calm shallow waters past underwater caves, springs, and abundant wildlife. That one is squarely on the list for our next visit. There are also hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails ranging from under a mile to a 4.6-mile loop. Note that swimming is not permitted in Silver Springs — the water is enjoyed by boat, kayak, or canoe only.
For those wanting to stay in the park, the 59-site campground sits in a pine and oak forest with water and electric hookups (30 and 50-amp), accommodates RVs up to 50 feet, and also offers several fully-equipped vacation cabins — though note the camping entrance is a separate road from the main park, so you'll be driving between the two.
Silver Springs is the kind of place you wish you had more time for. We left already planning the return trip — and we've got a score to settle with those monkeys.
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