Sights in The Everglades
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10,000 Islands
One of the best ways to experience the serenity of the Everglades - somehow desolate yet lush, tropical and foreboding - is by paddling the network of waterways that skirt the northwest portion of the park. The 10,000 Islands consist of many (but not really 10,000) tiny islands and a mangrove swamp that hugs the southwestern-most border of Florida.
The Wilderness Waterway, a 99-mile path between Everglades City and Flamingo, is the longest canoe trail in the area, but there are shorter trails near Flamingo.Most islands are fringed by narrow beaches with sugar-white sand, but note that the water is brackish, and very shallow most of the time. It's not Tahiti, but it's fasc…
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Hell's Bay
The real joy of the Everglades is canoeing into the bracken heart of the swamp. There are plenty of push-off points, all with names that sound like they were read off Frodo's map to Mordor, including Hell's Bay our favorite.
'Hell to get into and hell to get out of,' was how this sheltered launch was described by old Gladesmen, but damn if it isn't heaven inside: a capillary network of mangrove creeks, sawgrass islands and shifting mudflats, where the brambles form a green tunnel and all you can smell is sea salt and the dark, organic breath of the swamp. Three chickee sites (wooden platforms built above the waterline) are spaced along the trail.
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Anhinga & Gumbo Limbo Trails
Two trails, the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo (the latter named for the Gumbo Limbo tree, also known as the 'tourist tree' because its bark peels like a sunburned Brit), take all of an hour to walk and put you face to face with a panoply of Everglades wildlife. Gators sun on the shoreline, anhinga spear their prey and wading birds stalk haughtily through the reeds.
Come at night for a ranger walk onto the boardwalk and shine a flashlight into the water to see one of the coolest sights of your life: the glittering eyes of dozens of alligators prowling the waterways.
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Loop Rd
A little further up you can detour down Loop Rd , which offers four interesting sites. One: gambling-enriched Miccosukee (this is still their reservation), whose houses all seem to have shiny new pick-up trucks parked out front. Two: great pull-offs for viewing flooded forests, where egrets that look like pterodactyls perch in the trees. Three: scary, isolated Florida types who make it very clear trespassers will be sorry.
And four: the short, pleasantly jungly Tree Snail Hammock Nature Trail. Be warned that the Loop is a rough, unpaved road.
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Tamiami Trail
Calle Ocho happens to be the eastern end of the Tamiami Trail, which cuts through the Everglades to the Gulf of Mexico. So go west, young traveler, along US 41, a few dozen miles and several different worlds away from the city where the heat is on.
Past Hialeah, Miami fades like a trail of diminishing Starbucks until…whoosh…it's all huddled forest and open fields and a big canal off to the side (evidence of US 41's diversion of the Glades' all-important sheet flow).
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Ah-Tah-Ti-Ki Museum
The best Everglades tourism news in years is the advent of this Seminole museum, 27km (17mi) north of I-75. With educational exhibits on Seminole life, history and the tribe today, the museum was founded with Seminole gaming proceeds. Never before have the Seminoles opened so much up to the public. Sure, it's good for business, but they really are dedicated to giving visitors a closer understanding of the Seminole and Miccosukee people.
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Shark Valley
After endless variations of 'Zeke's Swamp Boat Alligatorama!', Shark Valley's friendly, knowledgeable rangers feel like a gift. The most popular and painless way to immerse yourself in the Everglades is via the two-hour tram tour that runs along the 15-mile asphalt trail. If you only have time for one Everglades activity, this should be it, as guides are informative and witty, and you'll likely see gators sunning themselves on the road.
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Florida National Scenic Trail
There are 31 miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail within Big Cypress National Preserve. From the southern terminus, which can be accessed via Loop Rd, the trail runs 8.3 miles north to the Tamiami Trail. There are two primitive campsites with water wells along the trail; pick up a map at the visitor center. Most campsites are free, and you needn't register. Monument Lake has water and toilets.
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Everglades City
The end of the track is an old Florida fishing village of raised houses, turquoise water and scattershot emerald-green mangrove islands. Hwy 29 runs south through town into the peaceful, residential island of Chokoloskee, past a great, psychedelic mural of a gator on a shed. 'What's there to do around here?' we ask our waitress. 'Eat.' Pause. 'Or go on an Everglades tour.'
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Christian Point
Further down Rte 9336 you can take a good two-hour, 1.8-mile (2.9km) hike to Christian Point . This dramatic walk takes you through several Glades environments: under tropical forest, past columns of white cypress and over a series of mudflats (particularly attractive on grey, cloudy days), and ends with a dramatic view of the windswept shores of Florida Bay.
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Ochopee
Drive to the hamlet of Ochopee (population about four)…no…wait…turn around, you missed it! Then pull over and break out the cameras: Ochopee's claim to fame is the country's smallest post office. It's housed in a former toolshed and set against big park skies; a friendly postal worker patiently poses for snapshots.
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Mahogany Hammock
Rte 9336 cuts through the soft heart of the park, past long fields of marsh prairie, white, skeletal forests of bald cypress and dark clumps of mahogany hammock. There are plenty of trails to detour down; the half-a-mile Mahogany Hammock Trail leads into an 'island' of hardwood forest floating on the waterlogged prairie.
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Seminole Museum
If you want to learn about Florida’s American Indians, come to this Seminole museum, 17 miles north of I-75. All of the excellent educational exhibits on Seminole life, history and the tribe today were founded on gaming proceeds, which provide most of the tribe’s multimillion-dollar operating budget.
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Pinelands Trail
Rte 9336 cuts through the soft heart of the park, past long fields of marsh prairie, white, skeletal forests of bald cypress and dark clumps of mahogany hammock. There are plenty of trails to detour down. The half-a-mile Pinelands Trail takes you through a copse of rare, spindly swamp pine and palmetto forest.
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West Lake Trail
Rte 9336 cuts through the soft heart of the park, past long fields of marsh prairie, white, skeletal forests of bald cypress and dark clumps of mahogany hammock. There are plenty of trails to detour down. The West Lake Trail runs through the largest protected mangrove forest in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Pa-hay-okee Overlook
Rte 9336 cuts through the soft heart of the park, past long fields of marsh prairie, white, skeletal forests of bald cypress and dark clumps of mahogany hammock. Further on the Pa-hay-okee Overlook is a raised platform that peeks over one of the prettiest bends in the river of grass.
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Miccosukee Resort & Convention Center
Here the long-storied legacy of the nation’s indigenous peoples has culminated in…slots. Lots of slots, and comatose gamblers pouring quarters into them. If the Miccosukee and Seminole are cashing in on this stuff, more power to them, but it’s still depressing to watch.
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Big Cypress National Preserve
The Big Cypress National Preserve has alligators, snakes, Florida panthers (rarely seen), wild turkeys and many impressively large birds. Great bald cypress trees are nearly gone from the area, but dwarf pond cypress thrive.
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Big Cypress Gallery
Half a mile east of the visitor center, drop into the Big Cypress Gallery, displaying Clyde Butcher's work; his large-scale B&W landscape photographs spotlight the region's unusual beauty.
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Otter Cave
At the park entrance, the easy Otter Cave walk makes a boardwalk-ed loop through a thick copse of tropical hardwoods before emptying you out, disoriented, right back into the Shark Valley parking lot.
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Coral Castle
A favored kitschy tourist stop in Homestead is Coral Castle, which isn't a castle at all but a delightfully weird sculpture garden and monument to lost love.
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Shark Valley Observation Tower
Halfway along the Shark Valley trail is the 50ft-high Shark Valley Observation Tower, an ugly concrete structure that offers dramatically beautiful views of the park.
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National Preserve Headquarters
The National Preserve Headquarters, just east of Ochopee, has information and hosts cultural programs like artist-in-residence exhibits.
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