This beautiful, natural area is chockfull of wildlife: alligators, crocodiles, deer, raccoons, Florida panthers, bobcats, and other wild animals. Most activities center around eco tourism and water sports.
To learn a quick and easy lesson on how Everglades City -- once the county seat before Naples grew up -- developed as a company town for the building of Tamiami Trail, visit Museum of the Everglades. In neighboring Chokoloskee Island, Smallwood Museum remembers the days of Indian trading posts and outlaw shootings.
Don’t forget to stop at the smallest post office in the nation as you travel Tamiami Trail between the various preserves.
At nearby Wooten’s Airboat Tours, you can see hundreds of crocodilians in captivity along with other indigenous and exotic animals. The attraction also does Everglades airboat tours and swamp buggy rides.
One of the tastiest times of year to visit Everglades City is early February, when the calendar of events includes the ever-popular, long-running Everglades Seafood Festival.
Outdoor Attractions
Explore the driving, hiking, biking, and paddling trails of the Florida Everglades on your own, or join one of many Everglades tours that will take you into the wilderness by various modes of transportations.
Peculiar to the Everglades, big-wheeled swamp buggies and zippy airboats efficiently travel the marshes and shallow River of Grass environment into habitat rich with wildlife.
Other boat and kayak tours take you into Ten Thousand Islands, a maze of mangrove and sand islands where fishing, picnicking, beaching, and camping are favorite pastimes. For an overview, hire a float plane for a tour.
Collier-Seminole State Park makes an easy introduction to Everglades ecology with hiking, biking, and camping.
Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, known as the Orchid Capital of the United States, too, has miles of easy pathways to explore by car, bike, or foot. For true submersion into this soupy habitat, join a get-wet swamp walk.