Williford Spring

"Great springs and hiking trails."

"Very lovely spring. It was neat with how much current comes out of this hole. Careful on the last two steps, they're extremely slippery, I consider myself young and I basically crawled down those steps. I'd dock a star for the trail over to this spring from Pitts spring, but the review isn't of the trail so I left the stars alone. The walking trail is overgrown, it's so thick in spots that you wouldn't be able to see if you were about to step on a snake, thankfully the snake that was on the trail was when the trail finally widened and was clear right before getting to Willford Spring. It's a mile long dirt trail with nice little climbs for being in Florida. But as for the spring area, the grounds are lovely and the spring is pretty. Cold of course but great view of the spring underwater as soon as you're in the water. Composting toilets, pavilions, boardwalk around. I'd say don't try to swim the creek back to Pitts instead of walking back (you can also drive, but we assumed the hike would be nice so we walked and I thought swimming back would be neat in spring water. The creek though is creek creek, it's brown and you can't see anything swimming so you'll swim right into underwater logs and my Florida brain couldn't help but think about the alligators I can't see. One person though said they've never seen gators in the creek but another person said they have. Further down the creek you do come to where people put in to tube and swim so I guess people do swim in the creek all the time, but maybe less so further up or I just was being wimpy about swimming into logs. There's a spot just down from Willford Spring where people launch kayaks, straight from their dock is the creek water to Pitts Spring, to the left from the dock keeps you in beautiful spring water. I'm just not sure where that heads swim wise as it doesn't hit Pitts Spring. But you can see part of it from the hiking trail and it does look great."

"Absolutely gorgeous spot. Water is extremely cold."

"This is a beautiful spring. It was a little colder than some springs, most likely around 68 vs 72 for some others. The boil or vent here is massive and there is so much water coming up it will push you out of the way. The water was clear and beautiful when we were there. There are pit toilets here. They also had wooden walk ways to the spring and to a boat tie off/fishing spot. There were covered areas with picnic tables as well. The biggest negative is the dirt road to get to it from the main road. It isn't much more than a mile but you will be "shaken not stirred" when you get there. The other thing to keep in mind is the gate says open till sundown but the officer came to close it about a half hour before actual sunset. (He was very nice though.) We will be back."

"This was an awesome little swimming hole. I with the steps weren't so skinny and slippy so my mother in law could have gone done one more step. She is in her 80s and the two bottom steps were just a little too slippery so she parked her butt on a step and put her feet in her butt in the water. This is her first time to the state of Florida it was her first time to anything like a Florida spring and it was her first time in a bathing suit since she was in her twenties. She loved every minute of it, even though she couldn't get all the way in the water. The park is very clean very well maintenance the bathrooms were very clean and easy to get in and out of the boardwalk down to the spring was very easy for my mother-in-law to walk down and walk back up."