I used AI to help plan this trip. I asked an AI agent to plan a three day trip to the Everglades. From that, planned a trip. Here's how it went.
There are two roads through the Everglades. One starts around Homestead and goes southwest to Flamingo, about 60 miles. The other is/was a main east/west highway across Florida, the Tamiami Trail, US 41. It starts on the west side of Miami, about 25 miles north of Homestead and goes all the way across to Naples on the Gulf Coast.
We decided to stay in Homestead and journey out from there. We spent one day on the road to Flamingo and two days on the Tamiami Trail. So, I think if I had to do it again, we'd have stayed closer to the Tamiami Trail.
The NPS recommends that you visit in the "dry" season, which ends in April. We went in mid-May, but it has been extraordinarily dry and the rains don't really get going until summer, so it turned out well.
Day One: The road to Flamingo. First stop. The sign at the Coe Visitor's Center.
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| Obligatory Sign Stop |
,,,then on to a couple trails at the Royal Palm Visitor's Center. This area is one of the first to be targeted for preservation, first by private individuals, then the state, and finally the NPS.
The Anhinga trail was the first. About a mile of boardwalk. This was excellent. Lot of wildlife to see.
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| A Great Blue Heron - just before he score a fish |
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| Heron targets |
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| Egret |
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| One of several alligators, including some bellowing at each other! |
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| Lilly pad flower |
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| General view from Anhinga trail |
The Gumbo Limbo Trail was not so pleasant. It was basically a half mile sprint to get out and away from mosquitos. Deep Woods Off made them laugh.
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| The only picture I took from Gumbo Limbo Trail |
Back to the car...
Along the road, we encountered this white tail deer. You don't see many mammals in the park. The pythons have seen to that. More later...
Another stop was at Mahogany Trail through an old growth Mahogany Island. After the mosquito-fest at Royal Palm's Gumbo Limbo Trail, I went solo on this one. No mosquitoes here, so more pictures.
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| Very old Mahogany |
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| Old man and mahogany |
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| Boardwalk through the island |
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| This is periphyton - the swampy looking stuff |
The Everglades isn't feet and feet of muddy goo, like swamp. It actually atop a limestone base. On top of this is periphyton in many places. It's an algae mat that also has fungi and bacteria. It filters the water and provides habitat for Everglades organisms.
Flamingo is right at the edge of the Florida Bay. There is a small lodge and restaurant plus a couple marinas - one NPS, the other private. We took a boat tour that went away from the bay up through a canal into the mangrove forest.
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| There are actually two crocodiles about to fight here. One is just visible just in front of the one most visible. |
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| This guy is known as "half jaw". Apparently a regular here - he's missing a bit of his lower jaw. |
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| American Crocodile |
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| Osprey |
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| Anhinga drying out |
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...and another one. Can see "piano-like" plumage
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| Bromeliads are air plants that grow on the trees |
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| Mangrove islands - some without any dry land |
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| Brown Pelican - what a wonderful bird... |
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| Great Egret |
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| Tricolor Heron |
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| Our boat tour only had five passengers. A great tour! |
We ate the restaurant in Flamingo - recommended by our guide - and since the next nearest one was 60 miles back in Homestead! The food was good!
The next day, we headed north to get on the Tamiami Trail. The easterly part of the road is lined with vendors who will take you on an airboat ride. We had picked one out from the NPS park concessionaire list and some Google reviews. Everglades Safari Park.
They have large airboats with two engines and a half dozen or so benches that can seat eight or ten people. We only had rows with six people. I don't know if it's because the water is so shallow from the drought or that's how many people showed up.
So, many people think of Miami Vice when thay think of airboats. Never watched it. I have a memory of Dennis Weaver on a TV show with an airboat. Turns out, that show was "Gentle Ben". An interesting twist is that show is partly why we now have a house in St. Augustine. My step-grandfather was the writer's agent for Walt Morey, the author of that book. They show made money that eventually wound up paying for some the house.
After the airboat ride, you get to see an alligator show where they educate you on some rescued alligators they keep. ...Plus a snake.
Off to the Shark Valley for a tram tour and tower view - that I booked for 1:00 PM. Um...err...oops. ...that I booked it for 11 AM. We missed it! (maybe)
Oh, well. On to Big Cypress Preserve adjacent to the park. There's a loop road that you can drive through the cypress forest.
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| Cypress grove. The swampy parts were really dried out. |
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| Typical part of Loop Road. The car got pretty dusty. |
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| Red Shouldered(?) Hawk in a cypress tree |
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| Look what Patti found! |
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| ...a whole mess o'gators! |
This was just about the only wet spot on the whole road. The alligators will tend to gather in the few spots that are left at the end of dry season.
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| Nice of them to pose. |
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| One. Big. Gator. |
On our way back, we had to pass by Shark Valley. We saw that the last tram tour was at 4:00 PM, which we could easily make. We stopped in and they had no problem rebooking us for the tour!
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| On the tram |
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| A tree island. Formed when a alligator wallows in a low spot . Tannins from trees that take root tend to dissolve the underlying limestone and increase the size of the area. |
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| There are hardwood, cypress and pine islands in this area. |
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| Another hawk |
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| A red something something scoter? |
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| Once again, the alligators find the remaining wet spots |
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| Chomp. |
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| Baby gators |
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| Alligator as seen from the tower |
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| On the tower ramp |
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| Some thunderstorms to the west. |
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| Penultimate alligator |
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Limpkin |
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| Last alligator! |
The third day, after triple checking, we left for the drive across the Tamiami Trail to a boat tour of the Ten Thousand Islands, on the western part of the Everglades.
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| Display at visitor's center on the way to Everglades City |
Our boat tour left the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Visitor's center at 1:30, so we had over an hour for lunch. We headed across the street to virtually the only restaurant in town that was open. Funky decor. Really a bar and grill. Some fried gator tails nuggets and shrimp and it was time to head to the boat...
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| Lunch spot |
...except it had started to pour down rain. After scooting back to Visitor's Center from the lunch spot, we checked to see if tour was still going out. Yep. Rain or shine. Here we go. Fortunately, the rain let up a good bit, but it did rain on and off the whole 90 minutes. After joking that I forgot my seat squeegee to clean off the benches, on of the crew started dong exactly that! We survived quite nicely.
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| Ranger - he quoted Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Impressive! |
We learned quite a bit about the ecosystem. It's all mangrove islands, some that have no solid land with them at all. The predominant type here is red mangroves that feature finger-like prop roots that grow down and support the tree.
Lots of dolphin action. The ranger referred to this area as the "Kingdom of the Dolphin" as opposed to the "Kingdom of the Alligator" which is true for the rest of the park.
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| Roseate Spoonbills |
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| Park Boundary |
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| The crew |
There really are over 10,000 islands in the area. The size and amount help to blunt violent storms. They propagate without seeds, but by launching small, live plants.
We weren't too pruney from all the wet.
What we didn't see much of in the park was mammals. We saw exactly two. The deer pictured above and a squirrel on Loop Road. The reason? Burmese Pythons! But, we did meet and hear tales of python hunters! Out Flamingo Boat tour guide, the diminutive driver of the Shark Valley Tram and a former real estate agent turned professional hunter. You don't just do it. You have to get a license and learn how. You must catch them alive and haul them out. Sometimes they are harvested after being cataloged and the skins sold to fund more hunting. Still, with an estimated 500,000 of them out there in the wild, it's hard for the hunter to make more than a dent in the problem.
Our time in the Everglades concluded with a stop in Ft Myers to visit family and then a scoot across Florida's cattle country and Orlando to get back to St. Augustine.
The Everglades is the third largest park in the NPS system Only Death Valley and Yellowstone are bigger. All those big parks have out-sized beauty or geology. The Everglades does not. It just looks like a big grass, marsh with clumps of trees. But, what is has is a collection of a variety of unique ecosystems well worthy of protecting and visiting. It's a worthy of National Park status and well worth a visit!
