The only place on Earth where gators and crocs share the water is in southern Florida

It’s bigger, wilder, and weirder than you think

Everglades National Park covers 1.5 million acres of southern Florida, and almost none of it looks like anything else in the country.

This is the largest wilderness east of the Mississippi River, and the only place on the planet where American alligators and American crocodiles live in the same wild water. Three international conservation bodies have recognized it.

Most people still underestimate it.

That gap between reputation and reality is exactly what makes the first visit so disorienting, in the best possible way.

The park was born to protect a living ecosystem

On Dec. 6, 1947, President Harry S. Truman dedicated Everglades National Park at a ceremony in Everglades City. It was the first national park created not for its scenery but for its living ecosystem.

That same year, Marjory Stoneman Douglas published “The Everglades: River of Grass,” a book that flipped the public’s view of the area from worthless swampland to something worth fighting for.

In 1997, the federal government named about 86 percent of the park the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness in her honor.

A slow river disguised as a sea of grass

Most people call it a swamp. It isn’t.

The Everglades is a river, about 100 miles long, flowing slowly from Lake Okeechobee down to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay. The water averages four to five feet deep across most of the park.

Nine distinct habitats run through it, including sawgrass prairies, freshwater sloughs, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rocklands, and mangrove forests.

It holds the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere and the largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie in North America.

Spot roseate spoonbills, panthers, and dolphins in one day

More than 350 bird species live in or pass through the park each year.

On any given morning, you might see roseate spoonbills, great blue herons, wood storks, and white pelicans.

The endangered Florida panther still roams the area, with a recovering population now estimated above 100 adults. Head toward the coast and the water holds bottlenose dolphins, manatees, and sea turtles.

Alligators are everywhere. Crocodiles are rarer, sticking to the park’s saltwater and brackish areas near the coast.

Ride the tram to a tower with 20-mile views

Shark Valley sits along the Tamiami Trail about 25 miles west of Miami, and it’s where you get the widest, flattest, most open look at the Everglades.

The tram tour runs two hours along a 15-mile paved loop, with a park-trained naturalist explaining what you’re looking at the whole way. At the halfway point, you climb a 45-foot observation tower.

The view runs 20 miles in every direction with no buildings, no roads, and no interruptions. You can also bike or walk the full loop if you’d rather go at your own pace.

Walk less than a mile and see alligators eye-level

The Anhinga Trail starts at the Royal Palm Visitor Center, about four miles from the Homestead entrance.

The whole thing runs less than a mile on paved walkways and boardwalks, but the wildlife density along it is hard to match anywhere in the park. Alligators rest on the banks a few feet from the path.

Anhingas dry their wings on the railings. Herons, egrets, and cormorants fish in the water right below you.

It draws big crowds between December and April, so go early if you want room to move.

Paddle through mangrove tunnels that block out the sky

The park has dozens of kayak and canoe trails. Nine Mile Pond near Flamingo covers 5.2 miles through mangrove tunnels and open marsh, and it’s manageable for beginners.

Turner River off the Tamiami Trail winds through mangroves, sawgrass, and cypress swamps and ranks among the most paddled routes in the park.

Hell’s Bay Canoe Trail cuts through tight, twisting mangrove creeks and can stretch 10 miles round trip. Rentals are available at Flamingo Marina and through outfitters near Everglades City.

Cruise the Ten Thousand Islands by boat

The Ten Thousand Islands stretch along the park’s Gulf Coast across more than 35,000 acres.

Despite the name, the islands number in the hundreds, most of them small clusters of mangrove barely big enough to stand on.

Guided boat tours leave from the Everglades City area, and the sightings run wide: dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, pelicans, ospreys, bald eagles, and roseate spoonbills.

A new tour to Sandfly Key, which includes a dock and a one-mile boardwalk to a former pioneer outpost, is expected to launch in 2026.

Camp or glamp at the end of the road

Flamingo sits at the end of the 38-mile main park road, at the southernmost point of the Florida mainland. It’s the hub for kayaking, canoeing, boating, and fishing in Florida Bay.

You can camp here, or book one of the eco-tents for a stay that falls somewhere between camping and a hotel.

From Flamingo, guided powerboat and kayak trips run out to Cape Sable, a remote natural beach on the park’s southwestern edge. The Guy Bradley Visitor Center there handles ranger programs and trail information.

Let an airboat take you into the sawgrass

Airboats are flat-bottomed and fan-powered, built to skim across shallow water and marsh grass at speed. A small number of authorized operators run tours along the Tamiami Trail inside park boundaries.

The rides are faster and louder than a traditional boat tour, and they push you out into the open sawgrass prairie where alligators surface, turtles sun on whatever dry ground they can find, and birds scatter as you pass.

It’s one of the most popular ways to see the park, and the pace makes it feel completely different from the trails.

A new Gulf Coast gateway rises after Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma slammed Everglades City in September 2017 with more than six feet of storm surge, destroying the old Gulf Coast Visitor Center.

The replacement, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center, opened in December 2025. The two-story building sits elevated and was built to handle hurricane-force winds and surge.

It serves as the main entry point for the park’s Gulf Coast district, with boat tours, kayak launches, and ranger programs running out of the site.

Douglas herself fought for the Everglades until her death in 1998 at age 108.

Three entrances, and they don’t connect inside the park

The Homestead entrance on the east side puts you on the main park road, with access to the Anhinga Trail and Flamingo.

The Shark Valley entrance off the Tamiami Trail to the north leads to the tram, the bike loop, and the observation tower.

The Gulf Coast entrance at Everglades City opens up the Ten Thousand Islands and the mangrove paddling trails. None of the three connect inside the park, so pick your focus before you go.

The entrance fee runs $35 per vehicle and covers seven days at any entrance.

Explore Everglades National Park in Florida

You can start your visit at whichever entrance fits your itinerary.

The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center at the Homestead entrance sits at 40001 State Road 9336 in Homestead. Shark Valley Visitor Center is at 36000 SW 8th St. in Miami.

The new Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center is at 815 Oyster Bar Lane in Everglades City.

The park stays open year-round, but the dry season from December through April brings lower heat, fewer mosquitoes, and the best wildlife viewing. The $35 vehicle fee is good for seven days.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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