Happenin’
Places › Florida › The Everglades › Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park

Photo: Everglades NPS (NPS photo by G. Gardner) / Public domain · source

🌊 Lakes & rivers

Everglades National Park

Homestead, FL · The Everglades

About

Everglades National Park protects 1.5 million acres of subtropical wilderness at the southern tip of Florida, the largest such ecosystem in North America. It is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles coexist, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to manatees, wading birds, and the elusive Florida panther. Visitors can walk the famed Anhinga Trail, paddle mangrove waterways, or take an airboat-free ranger tour through the 'River of Grass.'

Highlights

Anhinga Trail wildlife walkAlligators and crocodilesRiver of Grass sawgrass marshUNESCO World Heritage Site

Getting there

40001 State Road 9336, Homestead, FL 33034

Related places

Biscayne National Park Lakes & rivers

Biscayne National Park

Homestead, FL · The Everglades

Just south of Miami, Biscayne is a national park you mostly explore by boat: about 95 percent of it is water, protecting the northern reaches of the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States. Snorkel or dive the Maritime Heritage Trail, a chain of six shipwrecks spanning nearly a century, or paddle the mangrove shoreline. Boca Chita Key, with its 1930s ornamental lighthouse, makes the classic day trip across the turquoise bay.

Big Cypress National Preserve Lakes & rivers

Big Cypress National Preserve

Ochopee, FL · The Everglades

Big Cypress is the wild, watery buffer that wraps the western edge of the Everglades, a vast freshwater swamp of dwarf cypress, pine islands, and sawgrass prairie just off the Tamiami Trail in Ochopee. Drive the 24-mile gravel Loop Road to spot alligators, wading birds, and the occasional river otter from your car, or wade in on a ranger-led swamp walk. The cooler dry season, December through April, brings the best wildlife and the fewest mosquitoes.

Dry Tortugas National Park Lakes & rivers

Dry Tortugas National Park

Key West, FL · Florida Keys

Located almost 70 miles west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico, Dry Tortugas National Park is a remote cluster of seven small islands reachable only by ferry or seaplane. Its centerpiece is Fort Jefferson, one of the nation's largest 19th-century masonry forts, surrounded by crystal-clear waters renowned for snorkeling, coral reefs, and shipwrecks. The park is also a haven for nesting seabirds and migratory birds.

More in The Everglades

Others worth the drive in this corner of Florida.

All of The Everglades →
Biscayne National Park Lakes & rivers

Biscayne National Park

Homestead, FL · The Everglades

Just south of Miami, Biscayne is a national park you mostly explore by boat: about 95 percent of it is water, protecting the northern reaches of the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States. Snorkel or dive the Maritime Heritage Trail, a chain of six shipwrecks spanning nearly a century, or paddle the mangrove shoreline. Boca Chita Key, with its 1930s ornamental lighthouse, makes the classic day trip across the turquoise bay.

Big Cypress National Preserve Lakes & rivers

Big Cypress National Preserve

Ochopee, FL · The Everglades

Big Cypress is the wild, watery buffer that wraps the western edge of the Everglades, a vast freshwater swamp of dwarf cypress, pine islands, and sawgrass prairie just off the Tamiami Trail in Ochopee. Drive the 24-mile gravel Loop Road to spot alligators, wading birds, and the occasional river otter from your car, or wade in on a ranger-led swamp walk. The cooler dry season, December through April, brings the best wildlife and the fewest mosquitoes.

Coral Castle Attractions

Coral Castle

Homestead, FL · The Everglades

One man, Edward Leedskalnin, spent 28 years quarrying and carving more than 1,100 tons of oolite limestone here by lamplight, alone, never letting anyone watch how he moved stones heavier than a car. The result is a stone garden of the strange and the tender: a nine-ton gate balanced so finely a child can swing it open with one hand, a Polaris telescope aimed at the North Star, a heart-shaped table, and a row of rocking chairs cut from solid rock. He built it for a fiancee who left him the night before their wedding, and the whole place still reads like a quiet argument that love is worth a lifetime of stone.

Everglades Airboat Tours Attractions

Everglades Airboat Tours

Everglades City, FL · The Everglades

Out of Everglades City, an airboat trades the highway for a maze of mangrove tunnels and open sawgrass, the fan behind you pushing the flat hull across water only inches deep. Captains cut the engine where alligators sun on the banks and wading birds work the shallows, then open it up again down channels too tight and too shallow for any other boat. It is the closest you get to the Ten Thousand Islands backcountry without a paddle in your hands.

Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature Everglades National Park.

Best Florida Wildlife14 places

Best Florida Wildlife

Where to see Florida's wildlife up close: manatees, alligators, roseate spoonbills, the Florida panther and the tiny Key deer, across springs, swamps and refuges from the Panhandle to the Keys.

The United States National Parks63 places

The United States National Parks

All 63 of America's national parks in one place: the geysers and canyons, glaciers and giant sequoias, coral reefs and live volcanoes the country set aside for everyone. From the Grand Canyon to the Everglades to the wilds of Alaska, this is the complete collection, each one worth building a whole trip around.