Tallahassee International

Wakulla Springs is one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs on Earth. It pumps an average of 250 million gallons of crystal-clear 70-degree water per day from a cave system that descends more than 300 feet straight down — divers have mapped over 30 miles of passages and still haven't reached the end of the conduit network feeding the Floridan Aquifer. The clarity is the signature. The water carries almost no suspended sediment, so on a calm sunny day you can see fifty feet to the bottom of the spring boil. The first commercial glass-bottom boat tours started here in the 1870s. Manatees winter in the warm water; alligators sun on the cypress logs along the Wakulla River; bald cypress and Spanish-moss-draped tupelos line the banks. Hollywood discovered Wakulla in 1941 when MGM filmed "Tarzan's Secret Treasure" here — the fifth film in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan franchise. Newt Perry, the local swimming-promoter who later invented the Weeki Wachee mermaid show, knew Weissmuller and pitched Wakulla as Hollywood's American jungle. Universal followed in 1953 to film "Creature from the Black Lagoon" — Ricou Browning, an FSU student and Wakulla lifeguard, was cast on the spot to play the Gill-man in the underwater sequences. The clarity of the water made cinematography possible that couldn't be replicated on a studio backlot. Browning could hold his breath four minutes and swim with the foam-rubber Gill-man suit weighted to neutral buoyancy. The 1954 film is still regarded as one of the great achievements in underwater cinematography. The two sequels (1955, 1956) also filmed at Wakulla. The 6,000-acre park surrounding the spring includes the 1937 Wakulla Springs Lodge — a Mediterranean Revival hotel built by Edward Ball with a marble lobby and a five-story tower over the dining room. The Lodge is still open: 27 rooms, no televisions, an ice cream counter in the lobby. The park was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1966 and a National Historic and Archaeological District in 1993.

Sometimes called Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon," Providence Canyon is unique: it's entirely man-made. Poor cotton-farming practices in the early 1800s — clear-cutting and plowing right up to the property lines — caused catastrophic gully erosion that within a few decades had carved 16 canyons up to 150 feet deep into the soft Coastal Plain sediment. The exposed walls reveal pink, orange, red, and white sand layers laid down when this part of Georgia was an ocean floor 65 million years ago. A state park now protects the formation. The land at the rim is still essentially flat — pilots scanning the ground notice it as a sudden colored gash in otherwise unremarkable farm country.

A 438,000-acre blackwater wilderness straddling the Georgia-Florida border — the headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Marys rivers. The name comes from Hitchiti words meaning "trembling earth"; the swamp's floating peat islands actually do shake underfoot. Tannin from decomposing vegetation stains the water the color of strong tea, and the still surfaces reflect the cypress canopy like a mirror. Population: roughly 12,000 alligators, plus black bears, sandhill cranes, and the largest stand of pond cypress in the world. The swamp burns periodically — major fires in 2007 and 2011 — which keeps it open and vital.

Devil's Millhopper is a 120-foot-deep sinkhole carved out of Florida's limestone bedrock. From the rim, looking down past the wooden boardwalk that descends 232 steps to the bottom, you see a tropical rainforest in miniature: maidenhair ferns, oakleaf hydrangea, deep moss, twelve trickling streams that drain into a hole in the floor and disappear into the Floridan Aquifer below. The temperature at the bottom is consistently 10-15 degrees cooler than the surrounding pine flatwoods. Magnolias, hickories, and southern beech that ordinarily grow much further north survive here in the protected, humid microclimate. The name comes from a 19th-century legend: when farmers found small bones (fossilized animal remains, common in north-central Florida's karst geology) at the bottom of the hole, they assumed the sink was a "hopper" feeding bodies to the Devil's mill below. The actual mechanism is more straightforward and continuous — Florida's limestone bedrock dissolves under slightly acidic rainwater and groundwater, forming caves; periodically the roof of a cave collapses and creates a sinkhole. Devil's Millhopper is a particularly large and old example. It's been forming for at least 10,000 years. The state acquired the site in 1974 as one of Florida's first state geological parks. The wooden boardwalk descends in switchbacks down the north wall to a small viewing platform at the bottom. The boardwalk has been rebuilt multiple times due to weather damage and structural fatigue; the latest version replaced the entire stair system in 2018. Closed periodically after heavy rains when the bottom floods or when trail damage from tropical systems needs repair. Park entrance fee is modest; sinkhole is open Wednesday through Sunday.