Everglades National Park

Self-admittedly I’m not much of a Florida person. Too hot and flat for me. But the Everglades are certainly a reason to visit! I visit my family in south Florida each Christmas, and will often try to get down to an accessible part of the Everglades to get some outdoors time. And who knows, maybe next time I’ll get out on one of those swamp boats!

The Everglades are teeming with all kinds of birds, over 360 different species have been spotted here! And let’s not forget about our reptilian and amphibious friends, including the big daddy of them all the American Alligator. Visiting Everglades National Park is a good way to experience vast wetlands that used to cover all of south Florida. I challenge you to look at the current map, of which the wetlands cover the whole bottom portion of the Florida peninsula. And look at the historical map, which used to originate at Lake Okeechobee and flow all the way south into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately these wetlands have continually shrunk as they get filled in for development, but we can be comforted that a lot of these lands are covered by the national park and neighboring Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades & Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area.