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Spanish moss drips lazily from ancient oak trees lining the boulevards of Gainesville, reflecting the genteel Old South ambience of earlier decades. North Central Florida eschews the party-hearty beach lifestyle of its South Florida counterpart, opting instead to embrace the great outdoors in all its splendour, with a growing “culture and nature” perspective that informs life in Gainesville.

With seven state parks and kilometres of biking, hiking and paddling trails through shady pine forests, hammocks, waterfalls, wildlife sanctuaries, rolling hills and prairie lands, the term “get out” takes on literal meaning in most of Alachua County. Visitors join locals on scenic river floats by canoe, paddleboard and rafts, particularly on the spring-fed river at Ichetucknee Springs State Park. Farm-to-fork dining and local craft breweries scoop up the nightlife crowd in Gainesville, while creative types head downtown to the Hippodrome Theatre or the Harn Museum of Art, welcomed by the 7.3-foot “Hammering Man” and “Rory”, a 1.8-meter-tall horse constructed with scrap steel and old tractor parts.

Motorised vehicles, including rental cars and SUVs, offer convenient ways of getting around Gainesville, particularly for those who take advantage of the wealth of outdoor recreation opportunities and small-town excursions in and around the county. Motorcycles, scooters and mopeds zip through downtown and the university district, RTS buses service the city centre, and bike racks make it easy to traverse trails and dedicated bike lanes running throughout the city.

No Florida town is without its quirky attractions, and Gainesville is no exception, with the famous University of Florida Bat House & Barn housing about 300,000 bats consuming up to two tonnes of insects every night. Brazilian free-tailed bats put on a swirling, swooping feeding show in the darkness every evening. They comprise one of the world’s largest urban bat colonies, constructed after a fire tore through the attic of a 1912 cafeteria secretly harbouring about 5000 bats, prompting a three-year effort to entice the creatures to their new home with echo-relocation and other less technical techniques.