Silver Springs

Silver Springs is the reason Ocala existed as a destination before anyone had heard of Orlando. The spring is one of the largest artesian springs in the world, and the glass-bottom boat tours running over it date to the 1870s — they still run daily out of Silver Springs State Park. Kayaks and paddleboards launch onto the Silver River from the same park, and it is genuinely common to drift past manatees in the cooler months and the river’s famous wild rhesus monkeys — descendants of a handful released by a boat operator in the 1930s — in any month at all.

East of the springs the land runs into the Ocala National Forest, almost 600 square miles of sand pine scrub, lakes and springs — Juniper, Alexander and Salt Springs are all day trips that start from this side of town.

The housing story here is Silver Springs Shores, one of Marion County’s largest platted communities, laid out in the 1970s south of the springs. Lots are generous, deed restrictions are light, and price per square foot runs below almost everything west of it — which makes the Shores a consistent first-home and investor market. The homepage film dwells at Silver Springs for the market report, and that pairing is deliberate: this is the part of the county where the median dollar stretches furthest.