K P Hole

I’ve been to KP hole several times and always had a blast. The park staff is generally pretty friendly, and the river itself is amazing. I have always gone for the tube rides, never for snorkeling or kayaking.
A few things to note:
1. The parking lot gets full pretty early, and they do not let anyone else in after that. Generally you need to plan to arrive no later than about 10am.
2. No disposable containers allowed on the river, so all food and drinks must be put into sealable containers.
3. No alcohol allowed on the river. «Fruit Drinks» and other premade beverages are allowed however. Plan accordingly.
4. It is a 4hr river trip, with a few locations to stop along the way, but no real opportunity to cut the trip short. If you prefer a shorter route, you can now launch at the state park facility which is only a 2hr trip. The state park also include free entry into the headsprings after your ride.
5. If you bring your own inflatable, the maximum dimensions are 60″ across. They used to allow much larger group floats, but have since banned them. I have seen some people get in with slightly larger floats, but keep this in mind before buying or bringing a large float. It’s also smart to bring one extra «dingy» type float that you can tie to one of your tubes to float any belongings, food, beverages, etc.
6. There are a lot of great camping locations near the springs, so it’s often fun to make this a day and night trip.
Enjoy!

We love this place. Great place to start either a float or kayak trip. We use this as our base. Nice to be able to pull into the launch area and unload. While I get the yaks ready my wife parks the truck, pays our $ 5/​person and after a short walk from the parking to the ramp we are ready to go.
We usually paddle upriver to the head springs and have a quite, slow float back. We have floated down with the currnet and then paddled back, but just be readyt for a workout. The payoff is getting back to the launch area and swimming in the cool, crystal clear waters of the river.
Staff are friendly and helpful. There is a concession stand hat sells some food and ice cream but we have never tried any of the food items. They also have a vending machine that sells snacks and bagged ice is available for purchase. If going on a weekend or diring peak season, summer when kids are outta school, get there early since they limit acces to a certain number of people.
Some things you need to know about floating on the Rainow River, first they do not allow any disposable packaging on the river. This means all drinks need to be in nondisposable containers, food in tupperware type containers. No alcohol allowed in the KP Hole park. You can launch a boat here but idle speed only for entire river. If you snorkel you need a divers flag displayed. They do enforce these rules on the river, especially during busy times. I have seen several people snorkeling without a divers flag and they were not disturbed by FWC or the sherrifs office. Have not even seen any law enforcement on the river but was told by staff they do make appearences and when there they enforce rules vigorously.
We love this river and its pristine state. It is peaceful, relaxing and a great place to float, swim and enjoy nature.
If you are in the area and want to experiance natures beauty i highly recommend.

I’ve been coming to the KP Hole since I was a teenager and it is part of the Rainbow River or what the locals call «Blue Run.» It is one of the most pristine rivers in north Florida and the KP Hole is the place you’ll want to start if you are going to paddle the river. The main reason to do so is because you will be paddling against the current first and when you reach the head, you’re going to want to just relax on the way back. Trust me. I know.
If you don’t have your own canoe or kayak, there are rental places where you can just put your boat in @ KP Hole and paddle up from this amazing large swimming hole and see all of the wildlife abound. If you get hot, you can get out on the bank of the river and play in the trees and fresh spring water to take a break. The water stays 72 degrees year around so if you work up a nice sweat, jumping in is a MUST!
Overall, this is my favorite river in Florida and I’ve been to most of them. It is one of Florida’s little secrets and if you ever go, you will definitely see why! 5 STARS!

This was my first time tubing down a river and it was a fantastic experience! I came on a Friday, so the river was not crowded and we were able to enjoy several hours of peaceful, lazy floating. The river was almost completely transparent — I have never been somewhere with such clear water! Also the water was warm — but not too warm. The trees and houses that outline the river are absolutely gorgeous. When you reach the end, there are no signs indicating that there is a shuttle service (there is a sign for KP hole that awkward points in the direction of the road, but no real indication of what we should be doing). However, there is in fact a shuttle that comes down every 10 minutes or so to pick up floaters.
There are a few drawbacks. First there is only a 4 hour option (which I found was bit too long). Second, the water flow was not very fast (we paddled a lot to get ourselves going). We were told by others that when there is an upstream wind or the water on the river is low (due to lack of rain), it can take up to 7 hours to get down the river! Finally, it is hard to tell where the «middle» marker is on the river — so it’s very unclear to the rider how much longer they have on the river. Small markers would have been nice so that we knew whether to paddle more or less during the float down.

This is an AWESOME river to go Scuba Diving in! I’ve always used Capt. Bill and his boat to take me about a mile or so upriver. And did a drift dive on the way back, roughly an hour dive. The water is very clear and about a constant 72*degrees. with lots of underwater photo opportunities. Between the head springs and K.P. Hole the max depth is about 22ft. LOTS of different types of fish to see as whell as soft-​shell turtles. Ive personally dove in this river about 15 diferent times. and its always fun an breath taking as to how clear the water is.

Geoff and I went here on Monday. It was a lovelyy day out, only a little breezy. We are big fans of Rainbow Springs but wanted to try something new so we went to the K.P. Hole. It wasnt hard to find, just follow the signs. We get there, pay a little over 12 bucks per person for our floaties and then we were on our own. The lady at the booth rambled some directions really fast, but we’ve never been there so it was a little confusing. So, off we go. The water was nice and cool, and it was windy enough to keep us going decently fast.
The complaints I have (theres always gotta be something): There were not enough signs. Your floating literally 4 hours down a river, with nothing but ur bum in the water, and theres all these different forks in the river. Either go left or right or to the side, who knows, theres no signs! This may seem like something simple. But we were alone, out on a giant river, not knowing if we were even going the right way.
One other thing: There is no way to chicken out. This is a 4 hour float, and the river is surrounded by houses. So if i cut my foot, or got bit by a gator, I would have to float the rest of the way down the river, to get to shore, to wait for the bus to pick my butt up.
Now that I know what Im getting into, the experience was only a little sour due to my own panic. Fear of getting eaten, lost, or missing the bus kinda put me on edge. So now that I know what to expect, Id probably go again. It was a very relaxing ride, that requires ALOT of sunscreen.