If you are searching for hot springs in Florida, here is the answer most pages bury under a list of 72-degree swimming holes: Florida has no hot springs in the way Colorado, Idaho or Arkansas do. There is no volcanic heat under the peninsula, no fault line pushing boiling water to the surface, and no steaming pool in a mountain meadow.
Geologists call a spring "hot" when its water leaves the ground above human body temperature, about 98°F, and "warm" when it is noticeably above the local groundwater but below that line. By that definition Florida has zero hot springs and three natural warm springs, and exactly one of them has a parking lot, a ticket window and a swim area. That spring, Warm Mineral Springs in North Port, averages 85°F at the surface year-round. It is pleasant, mineral-heavy and historically remarkable. It is not hot.
This guide uses that definition throughout. It tells you where the three warm springs are, which one you can visit, why the state has so few, and what "hot springs near me" actually turns up once you are standing in Florida.
The short answer
| Spring | Water | Where | Can you visit? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm Mineral Springs | ~85°F surface, mid-90s at the vent | North Port, Sarasota County | Yes. City park, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, $15 to $20 adult |
| Little Salt Spring | Warmer than typical at depth; surface pool in the low 70s | North Port, 1.5 miles from Warm Mineral | No. University of Miami research site, closed to the public |
| Mud Hole Spring | ~95°F (35.3°C) measured at the vent | Gulf of Mexico floor, ~11 miles south of Sanibel Island | Not as a swim. Offshore saltwater vent reached by boat; dive and fishing site |
| Every other Florida spring | 68 to 75°F | Statewide | Yes, more than 1,000 of them |
For comparison, a hot tub runs 100 to 104°F, Warm Springs in Georgia (the pools Franklin Roosevelt used) runs about 88°F, and the hottest springs in Arkansas and the Rockies leave the ground well above 140°F.
Why Florida has no hot springs
All spring water is warmed by one of two things. The first is volcanic or tectonic heat close to the surface, which is what drives the famous hot springs of the Rockies, Yellowstone and Iceland. The second is ordinary geothermal heat: rock everywhere gets warmer with depth, by roughly 1°F for every 60 to 100 feet, so water that circulates deep enough and rises fast enough comes out warm. Florida has none of the first and only a little of the second, because its groundwater mostly stays shallow.
The peninsula sits on the Florida Platform, a slab of limestone and dolomite several thousand feet thick that has been geologically quiet for tens of millions of years. There are no volcanoes and no active faults. The thousand-plus springs that make the state famous come from the Floridan aquifer, a limestone sponge that lies a few dozen to a few hundred feet below the ground. Rain soaks in, moves sideways through caverns and conduits, and emerges wherever the rock is thin or broken.
Because that water travels at shallow depth, it takes on the average annual air temperature of the ground around it. That is why the springs are so steady and why their temperature tracks latitude: the Panhandle springs run around 68 to 70°F (Wakulla and Morrison are among the coldest), north-central springs like Ginnie and Rainbow sit at 72°F, and the Ocala National Forest springs edge to 74°F (Salt Springs is the warmest of the big public ones). The same 72°F number appears in nearly every spring profile on this site because it is the number the ground gives.
The three warm springs break that pattern because their water comes from far deeper, which makes them geothermal in the ordinary sense without being volcanic. Warm Mineral Springs and Little Salt Spring are deep sinkholes in southwest Florida with vents 200 to 240 feet down, and the water that rises through them has circulated through the lower, saltier, warmer layers of the aquifer. Mud Hole Spring is the same story under the Gulf: warm, salty aquifer water finding a crack in the sea floor. Geologists still debate how deep that water goes and how it gets back up, but every proposed explanation involves depth and the normal geothermal gradient, not magma. That is also why none of the three reaches the 98°F line: the aquifer is simply not deep enough to heat water that far.
Warm Mineral Springs: the one you can swim in
Location: 12200 San Servando Ave., North Port, FL 34287, in Sarasota County, about 30 minutes south of Sarasota and 90 minutes south of Tampa.
Water: The City of North Port reports an average of 85°F year-round. The vent, roughly 200 feet below the surface, discharges water in the mid-90s that cools as it rises and mixes. The spring is third magnitude, around 5.5 million gallons a day, and carries about 51 dissolved minerals, which is why the water is faintly green, slightly sulfurous and heavier than lake water. People float easily in it.
Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The park closes temporarily when lightning is detected within eight miles and reopens 30 minutes after the last strike.
Admission (Oct 1, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027): adults $15 for North Port residents, $18 for Sarasota County residents, $20 for everyone else; students 6 to 17 pay $11.25, $13 or $15; children 5 and under are free. Proof of residency is required for the resident rates. Multi-visit and annual passes are sold at the gate. Phone 941-429-7275.
What is open and what is not: Hurricanes Elsa (2021) and Ian (2022) damaged the 1950s building complex that held the gift shop, showers, changing rooms and lockers. That complex is closed. A temporary admissions building and a portable restroom trailer serve visitors. There are no concessions; small coolers are allowed and food trucks often park outside the gate. On July 27, 2026 the city broke ground on a $16.7 million rehabilitation of the admission building, the spa building and the Cyclorama. The city has not published a completion date, so expect construction fencing on the landward side of the park through at least 2027.
Why it matters beyond the temperature: The 230-foot-deep basin preserved human remains and artifacts more than 10,000 years old, which is why the site is a National Natural Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. Spanish accounts from the 1500s describe a warm, healing spring on this coast, and the park leaned into the Fountain of Youth story for decades. The clientele still skews toward retirees who come daily for the minerals, which makes it the calmest swim in Florida.
How to do it: Arrive at opening on a weekday, bring your own towel and water shoes, and plan on an hour or two of floating rather than swimming laps. Pair it with a Gulf beach afternoon at Manasota Key or Venice, 25 to 35 minutes west. Full details, including what to expect from the water and the history, are in the Warm Mineral Springs guide.
Little Salt Spring: warm at depth, closed to the public
Little Salt Spring sits 1.5 miles from Warm Mineral Springs inside the city of North Port, and it is the reason archaeologists know how old the human story in this corner of Florida is.
The spring is a sinkhole about 260 feet across with a shallow 40-foot basin that drops through a shaft to a maximum depth of roughly 246 feet, with ledges at about 52 and 89 feet. Below about 16 feet the water holds almost no oxygen, so wood, bone and even soft tissue have survived for millennia. Divers working from a ledge 89 feet down recovered the shell of an extinct giant tortoise with a sharpened wooden stake through it; the stake dated to about 12,000 years ago. The adjoining slough held hundreds of burials 5,000 to 7,000 years old. The site went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Warmer, mineral-rich water rises from the deep vent, which is why older sources group Little Salt with Warm Mineral as Florida's "hot springs," but the surface pool itself sits in the low 70s. There is no swim here in any case. The General Development Corporation donated the 112-acre property to the University of Miami in 1982 with deed restrictions that limit it to research and education. The university explored transferring it to Sarasota County between 2013 and 2016; those talks stalled over the deed language, and the most recent public records still list the university as owner. A local nonprofit, Friends of Little Salt Spring, is organizing volunteer stewardship. Verify current ownership and access directly with the City of North Port or the university before planning anything around it.
Mud Hole Spring: the warmest water in Florida is under the Gulf
The warmest natural water in Florida comes out of the sea floor, and even it stops a few degrees short of hot. Mud Hole Spring (often written Mud Hole Submarine Spring) lies about 18.5 kilometers, roughly 11 miles, due south of the Sanibel Island lighthouse in Lee County, in the Gulf of Mexico.
A 1998 study that logged the vent hourly from May to mid-June recorded a constant 35.31°C, about 95.6°F, with a salinity of 34.6 parts per thousand, essentially seawater. The surrounding Gulf at that depth runs about 70°F, and the warm plume is large enough that satellites have picked it up in thermal imagery. The name comes from the bottom: the vent sits in fine sediment, and anything that disturbs it throws up clouds of mud.
Mud Hole is a research site, a fishing spot (the warm, nutrient-rich outflow concentrates bait and gamefish) and an occasional advanced dive. It is not a place to go for a soak. It is, however, the honest answer to "geothermal springs in Florida": at roughly 96°F it is the closest the state comes to a hot spring, and the clearest evidence that Florida's warm water comes from deep aquifer circulation rather than anything volcanic.
What "hot springs near me" actually finds in Florida
Type that phrase into a map from Orlando, Tampa or Jacksonville and the pins that appear are ordinary Floridan aquifer springs, most of them exactly 72°F. That is not a bad result, it is just a different trip than the one you were imagining.
| Spring | Water | Nearest city | Why people go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salt Springs | 74°F | Ocala | Warmest of the big public springs, mineral taste, full-hookup camping |
| Silver Glen Springs | 74°F | Ocala | Huge clear basin, boat-in culture |
| Juniper Springs | 72°F | Ocala | Stone-walled swimming pool, 7-mile paddle |
| Rainbow Springs | 72°F | Dunnellon | Tubing, waterfalls, state park camping |
| Ginnie Springs | 72°F | High Springs | Clearest water in the state, tubing, cave diving |
| Blue Spring (Orange City) | 72°F | Orlando | Hundreds of wintering manatees |
| Three Sisters Springs | 72°F | Crystal River | Manatee viewing boardwalk, swim-with tours in Kings Bay |
| Wakulla Springs | 68 to 70°F | Tallahassee | Deepest spring, boat tours, coldest big swim in Florida |
In July and August, when the air is 92°F and the Gulf is 88°F, a 72°F spring is the coldest water you can find in Florida and the whole state knows it. That is the season the springs are built for.
When a Florida spring feels warm
The temperature never changes; the air does. From December through February, mornings in north and central Florida drop into the 40s and 50s, and a 72°F spring is suddenly 20 degrees warmer than everything around it. Steam lifts off the surface at dawn. Manatees, which cannot survive long below about 68°F, pour into the spring runs by the hundreds, which is why Blue Spring, Three Sisters and Homosassa are winter destinations.
If what you want from a hot spring is the feeling of warm water on a cold day, a Florida spring in January delivers it. Wear a 3mm wetsuit if you plan to stay in longer than 20 minutes, go early for the steam and the manatees, and see our guide to swimming with manatees for the rules.
The nearest true hot springs to Florida
If only a real hot spring will do, you are driving out of state.
- Warm Springs, Georgia. About 88°F, the pools where Franklin Roosevelt took polio therapy. The historic pools at Roosevelt's Little White House are not open for swimming, but the town is 5 hours from Jacksonville and 6 from Tallahassee.
- Hot Springs, Arkansas. 143°F thermal water piped into bathhouses on Bathhouse Row inside a national park. Roughly 11 hours from Tallahassee.
- The Rockies and the West. Colorado, Idaho, Montana and California hold most of the country's natural hot pools. Fly.
Frequently asked questions
Are there hot springs in Florida?
No. A hot spring is one whose water leaves the ground above about 98°F, and nothing in Florida does. The state has three natural warm springs: Warm Mineral Springs in North Port (about 85°F at the surface), Little Salt Spring, also in North Port (a closed research site), and Mud Hole Spring, a saltwater vent on the Gulf floor south of Sanibel (about 95°F). Every other Florida spring runs 68 to 75°F year-round.
Where is the only hot spring in Florida you can swim in?
Warm Mineral Springs Park, 12200 San Servando Ave., North Port, in Sarasota County, about 30 minutes south of Sarasota. It is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas. Adult admission is $20 for non-residents, $18 for Sarasota County residents and $15 for North Port residents (fees effective Oct 1, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027).
How warm is Warm Mineral Springs?
The city of North Port reports an average of 85°F year-round at the surface. The water rising from the vent roughly 200 feet down is warmer still, in the mid 90s, and cools as it mixes in the 230-foot-wide basin.
Can you swim in Little Salt Spring?
No. Little Salt Spring is a 246-foot-deep sinkhole owned by the University of Miami since a 1982 donation with deed restrictions limiting it to research and education. It is a National Register archaeological site and is not open to the public.
Is there a map of hot springs in Florida?
There is only one public location to put on it: Warm Mineral Springs in North Port. Little Salt Spring is 1.5 miles away but closed, and Mud Hole Spring is 11 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Any map showing more Florida hot springs is listing ordinary 72°F springs.
Are Florida springs warm in winter?
They hold about 72°F all year, so on a 50°F January morning the water feels warm, steam lifts off the surface, and manatees crowd into the spring runs to survive. In July the same 72°F water feels cold. The water does not change; the air does.
Sources
- City of North Port, Warm Mineral Springs Park: hours, fees effective Oct 1, 2026, water temperature, facility status.
- Business Observer, $16.7M building rehab project begins at Warm Mineral Springs Park, July 27, 2026.
- Wikipedia, Little Salt Spring: ownership, dimensions, archaeology, National Register listing.
- Sarasota News Leader, County agrees to one last attempt at ownership of Little Salt Spring.
- Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, Mud Hole Submarine Spring: 1998 temperature and salinity record.
- USGS, Satellite observations of a geothermal submarine spring off Florida's west coast.
- Florida Springs Institute, Frequently asked questions: why Florida springs are not geothermal.
- UF/IFAS, Why do we have so many springs in Florida?
Last verified November 1, 2026. Warm Mineral Springs fees and hours are the City of North Port's published schedule for Oct 1, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027; check the city page before a visit while construction is under way.