Silver Springs State Park

A spring near Ocala that drew tourists long before Orlando's parks, and is now a state park. Glass-bottom boat rides here are usually traced to the 1870s, and they still float over the clear springs and the fish, turtles and eelgrass below. The odd twist is the monkeys: a troop of wild rhesus macaques lives along the Silver River, descended from animals released for a boat tour in the 1930s. Give them space if you paddle. The park suits anyone who wants old-fashioned Florida tourism without the crowds of the big parks to the south.