Beaches & Adventure Insider

Wakulla Springs Park boasts enough alligators that if you lined them up end-to-end, they would circle the globe.

Okay, not really. It just seems like it, since at any given time 200 to 400 of the beasts reside there.

My husband and I visited the nature-lover’s paradise, located less than half an hour from Tallahassee, a few days ago. It’s one of the world's largest and deepest freshwater springs. Imagine a place so quiet you can hear yourself breathe, where the air is scented with pine and the people are hometown-friendly, and you’ll have a pretty good picture of it.

You can bike or hike there, but we opted for the boat eco-tour. The only boats allowed on the river are park-operated, and the wildlife is very accustomed to them, so you can float astonishingly close to turtles, manatees, exotic birds galore and, of course, an abundance of alligators.

The river is also chock-full of mullet, which for unknown reasons like to make huge leaps out of the water. Almost every moment a fish – or several of them– were sailing through the air. We were warned the river was not at its clearest, but I thought it was like looking through air.

Pretty cool. You should definitely jog down the road to visit if you’re in the area.