Ocala brought back so many memories of high school screamed lyrics to Mayday Parade’s song “Miserable at Best.” “Ocala is calling, and you know its haunting… but compared to your eyes nothing shines quite as bright.”

Is it just me that a few out of place words linked to lyrics start a mental song playing on repeat?

Anyways, searching for a place to allow us some rest, we used our app HipCamp to find a local campsite on someone’s property. We located one, paid for it, only to end up getting a message saying that we needed to cancel our reservation immediately and the longer we took to cancel the more of our refund the owner would be taking from us. Stunned we immediately cancelled, booked another site, and went about our trip… more to come on this later.

We ended up booking at a horse farm that is located in Ocala National Forest. The land was beautiful and our camper was lined up in front between some other camper units, as if we were in a legit campground. There were multiple horse stables, approximately 10 paddocks, and even an arena for showing horses. In addition, there were a lot of permanent campers.

Random fact #1: There are approximately 45,000 people living within the borders of the Ocala National Forest. We were informed of this upon arrival and told to keep an eye out. Upon doing my own research I found multiple news agency interviews on those living in forest, but feel free to do your own research. It’s quite interesting.

We didn’t feel really comfortable walking the grounds, as a neighbor let their dog run loose. This dog agressively came at ours and after our incident with the rooster… we were not about to let the kids around another aggressive animal. We weren’t about to cause an issue for one week of our lives, so we just stayed inside while at camp.

Daniel called Hipcamp to discuss our refund for the other campsite and we were told they would get back with us and a ticket was opened for our concern in receiving our refund (which was not a small amount to just let pass away). The company never called back. We ended up seeking them out many times in the upcoming weeks, only to find out our ticket was closed and they did not inform us. Apparently with Hipcamp, the people renting the sites have the right to refuse a refund and our person refused to give us our money back. Instead of letting us know, they closed the ticket and left it alone. With Christmas soon approaching and hundreds of dollars on the line, I took it upon myself to call in place of Daniel. After many calls later and no return calls back, I refused to get off the phone until they helped me. I was finally sent to a manager, who acknowledged not returning my call, with no apology included. She looked into our case, only to find out that the lady sent us a response explaining why we should cancel our site (our unit was too large), but the message didn’t show up on our end. Both Daniel and I and the owner of the site had sent screenshots of our conversations, but no one had bothered to look into them to see that we had in fact done everything required of us. The owner of the site, had in fact done what she needed to on her end to, but the message just didn’t show up on our messages. The company, though I was told several times would not allow refunds, finally gave us our money back. We are so very thankful.

Our time spent in Ocala focused on seeing the local parks, as they are always one of our favorite places to explore in a new city, and venturing to the local natural springs.

Random fact #2: Near Silver Springs, which is a natural spring like many in the area, there is a group of approximately 300 monkeys with a strange history. According to the source provided, there are “free-ranging rhesus macaques.” Colonel Tooey, a man seeking profit, set up an island in the Silver River hoping to create an attraction for his jungle cruise ride. As the story goes, Colonel thought he was getting squirrel monkeys, who are unable to swim. However, the monkeys he recieved could swim and kept leaving the island and replicating. To date, the monkeys are still found within and around the Ocala National Forest.

The Silver Springs monkeys

Our visit to Juniper springs exceeded all expectations and I believe it made our entire week in Ocala so worth the visit. Just check out these photos.

Let’s just say, crystal clear waters has a whole new meaning. I highly recommend the visit, prep a picnic lunch, go for a short hike, refresh with the spring waters. As the spring is natural, the waters stay at a shocking 72 degrees. Coming from the Midwest that may seem warm, but in the warm Florida heat, the waters definitely jolt the body.

Overall, Ocala National forest is beautiful.

Unique in history.

A walk on the wild side.

Perhaprs your next off the beaten path adventure?

Enjoy!