Weekend Things to do in Gainesville Florida

Things to do for a weekend in Gainesville, Florida

As the Voyage Florida team turns to discovering more of Florida, one city we have failed to visit as much as the others is Gainesville, Florida. And so, with a $16 hotel room booked, we were off to spend a weekend in Gainesville. Here’s what we did, and ideas on things to do in Gainesville.

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Getting in to Gainesville

Since we live in Jacksonville, it was a quick drive to get to get to Gainesville. We had an option to take I-10 and down through I-75, but it will mean more miles, so we took the state roads that connected through our cities and ran past small towns.

If you are coming in from out of town, Gainesville has a small regional airport that’s serviced by some of the bigger airlines. Alternatively, you can opt to fly in through Jacksonville and rent a car to get to Gainesville.

Things to do in Gainesville

While our itinerary may be short (it was only a weekend), note that we will not cover every single activity you can possibly do in the city. We will cover a more comprehensive list of things to do in a separate post, once all our research has been documented and finalized.

Camp Blanding Museum

Camp Blanding Museum

Technically not within Gainesville, Camp Blanding is located in a small city called Starke. It is halfway between Jacksonville and Gainesville, around an hour each way, perfect for a stop.

Within the Camp Blanding premises is an indoor and outdoor military museum that’s free to the public. They’re only open between 12-4, so you’ll have to time your visit accordingly. We did not have time to actually visit the indoor museum, but we’ll go do that another time.

What we did manage to do was visit the outdoor exhibits, which had jeeps, helicopters, aircraft, even guns and artillery. It also had memorials to various troops that were deployed to different parts of the world during the wars that the US partook in (WW2, Vietnam, among others).

Allot a minimum of an hour to do the indoor and outdoor exhibits in the museum. If you are a history junkie then this is definitely a place for you.

Book Gallery West

We at Voyage Florida are big book lovers and make it a point to visit indie used bookstores whenever we visit a new city. Book Gallery West is just one of those charming places that we visited. While the non-fiction section is not as big, they do have shelf upon shelf of fiction books, all for half or more than half off the cover price.

One can also opt to go to 2nd and Charles in Gainesville, which is also a quick 10 minute drive. Since the weather was not cooperating as much when we got there on our weekend, we opted to go to both places to avoid the rain.

Townesplace Suites Gainesville Northwest

Our hotel in Gainesville was the Townesplace Suites Gainesville Northwest. We got a huge room for the total price of $16. We’ve posted a review about the hotel separately on this blog, if you are interested to know how we managed to score a deal this great and what we thought of the room.

University of Florida Bat Houses, Gainesville Florida

UF Bat Houses

After checking in to the hotel and having dinner, we rested for a bit before heading out to the UF Bat Houses. Every night around 10 minutes after sunset, the bats living in the UF campus go out to hunt, and it is quite a spectacle to see.

One can spend the time waiting for the bats to come out by walking by the lake across the street from the bat houses. We saw an alligator swimming by. The path to the lake is also a good area to watch the bats when they are already flying out – just be careful about the guano and don’t open your mouth while staring up at these majestic creatures.

Best of all, this experience is free! Parking is accessible and is a short walk from the bat houses.

Bluefield Estate Winery

Bluefield Estate Winery is a family run place that’s located around 30 minutes east of Gainesville. It’s off a small road and is more of a blink and you’ll miss it type of place.

We went here the morning after, as soon as they opened. Check their Facebook page to see their hours as they can vary (mostly because of the virus). We managed to pick some blueberries (to take home to enjoy for the family), and my husband did a wine tasting and we went home with their fruit-based wine.

It is a really quaint farm, and my husband can’t say no to unique wine. Best of all, it was only a 10 minute detour from our drive home! The wine tasting was $5 for 4 different wines, and blueberry picking costs $4 per pound.

Bluefield Estate Winery also offers grape picking – check their schedule/calendar to see which fruits are in season for picking.

Waldo Flea & Farmer’s Market

This flea and farmer’s market is on our way home, so why not? We spent a total of an hour walking around, and ended up getting fresh fruit and vegetables to take home. Parking is free, and the flea & farmer’s market is only open on the weekends.

I managed to buy some old school DVDs for $1 per DVD, and browsed the antiques market beside the flea & farmer’s market.

Is it worth it to go to Waldo’s Flea & Farmer’s Market? Unless it is absolutely on your way to/from your destination, then I wouldn’t drive an hour or so just to get here. We’re not big fans of tchotchkes, so the antiques market did not particularly interest us. There were only few vendors selling the fresh fruit and vegetables as well, and skipped a lot of flea market vendors.

Weekend Things to do in Gainesville Florida
Weekend Things to do in Gainesville Florida

Our short weekend in Gainesville

And that wraps up our short weekend in Gainesville. We did not do a lot of activities nor did see a lot of the tourist sites since we did not have as much time to spend with our family commitments during that weekend.

Gainesville has a small, university town feel, and we definitely will be back to explore this city, be it for a few day trips, or a few overnight, weekend trips as well.

This is part of our local travel series, where we aim to see and do more and be a tourist in our state. Hopefully this will inspire you to see more of your state and surrounding cities.

Other Northeast Florida Reading

Looking for more places to see in the Gainesville, North Florida area? Here are some more posts/inspiration:

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