Wild Florida: Everglades, Big Cypress & Ancient Swamp Forest

The 0.8-mile Anhinga Trail boardwalk through Taylor Slough is the most wildlife-concentrated trail in any US national park — alligators sunbathing within feet of visitors, anhingas drying their wings with outstretched arms like hieroglyphic birds, herons fishing with perfect stillness, purple gallinules walking on lily pads. In the dry season, the receding water focuses every predator and prey species in the region into the pools visible from the boardwalk. Few places anywhere in the world offer this density of large wildlife at arm's reach.

A 0.4-mile loop through tropical hardwood hammock — the cooler, shadier counterpoint to the open sawgrass prairie. Wild orchids, strangler figs, and the peeling-bark gumbo limbo ('tourist tree') define the understory in a forest that feels more Caribbean than North American.

The boardwalk platform above the central sawgrass prairie — 'Pa-hay-okee' in Miccosukee, meaning 'grassy waters.' A flat, treeless landscape reaching to every horizon; the sky takes up more of the view than the land. This is what Marjory Stoneman Douglas called the 'river of grass' — and standing on the platform, you can see how the land slopes so gently toward the sea that the entire 60-mile-wide watershed is indeed moving, invisibly, southward.

A 37-acre public botanical garden in Homestead managed by Miami-Dade County, displaying more than 500 varieties of exotic fruits, herbs, spices, and nuts from tropical climates worldwide — including 160 varieties of mango. Tram tours run on weekends; the gift shop sells tropical fruit preserves, hot sauces, and dried spices from the gardens.

Loop Road (officially State Road 94) is a 26-mile unpaved scenic drive through the heart of Big Cypress National Preserve — the 729,000-acre wilderness that buffers the northern edge of Everglades National Park. The road is passable in a standard car in dry conditions; in summer after heavy rain, high clearance helps. The drive passes through dwarf cypress prairies, flooded hardwood strands, open marshes, and dense pop-ash forests — distinct ecosystems cycling in patterns determined by the subtle topography of the underlying limestone. Wildlife sightings on Loop Road can be spectacular: alligators are common on the road surface at dawn and dusk, otters fish in the road-side ditches, and the elusive Florida panther has been documented on wildlife cameras at multiple points along the route. The Florida panthers that survive (estimated at 200 animals statewide) have their core territory in the Big Cypress, and while an actual sighting is extremely rare, the knowledge that they are present adds a particular intensity to every scan of the cypress strands.

The Ochopee Post Office on US-41 (Tamiami Trail) is the smallest post office in the United States at 61 square feet — an irrigation pipe storage shed converted to postal use in 1953 after the actual post office burned down. It is fully operational, staffed by a single postal worker, and receives visitors from around the world. The surrounding community of Ochopee (population: several dozen) is the gateway to some of the most remote wilderness in the Big Cypress.

The Florida National Scenic Trail passes through 31 miles of Big Cypress National Preserve, much of it through the kind of remote cypress strand wilderness accessible no other way. Short out-and-back hikes from trailheads on US-41 are possible and highly rewarding — especially in winter when the water levels are low and the cypress strands can be walked through. In wet season (June through October) expect knee-deep water; rubber boots are essential then and liberating. The cypress trees in these strands, while not as ancient as Corkscrew, are large and atmospheric — wide, gray, buttressed at the base, festooned with Spanish moss and bromeliad air plants.

Managed by the National Audubon Society since 1954, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary protects 13,000 acres of wilderness including the largest remaining stand of old-growth bald cypress forest in North America. The 2.5-mile elevated boardwalk winds through a forest of ancient trees — some over 500 years old and 130 feet tall — that was already ancient when the Seminole Wars were fought nearby in the 1830s. The cypress trees in the old-growth section are cathedral-like: vast, buttressed trunks rising into a canopy of interlocking branches draped with Spanish moss and air plants, the understory below carpeted with native ferns and the occasional blooming orchid. The sanctuary hosts the largest colony of wood storks in the United States — an endangered species that nests only in old-growth cypress and requires large trees to support their massive nests. When a wood stork colony nests here (not every year, depending on water conditions), thousands of birds fill the canopy in one of the most spectacular wildlife events in North America. Open at 7am; arrive early for the best birding.

Use the afternoon to explore a different side of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary — Boardwalk — there's more to discover beyond the morning highlights.

The Gulf of Mexico at Naples offers the finest beach swimming on Florida's west coast — warm, calm, clear water and wide white sand backed by residential streets, with the Naples Pier extending 1,000 feet over the Gulf. After three days of wilderness, a swim in the Gulf is the right way to end the trip.