Everglades National Park Travel Guide: 1 Day Exploring the Park's Trails, Tours & Wildlife

[Music] everglades national park comprises 1.5 million acres of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of florida the area is a unesco world heritage site and over 1 million people visit the park every year everglades national park has two main areas of access the northern section that features the shark valley area and the southern section that has lots of hiking trails as you head out to the florida bay my dad and i decided to see as much of the park as we could in one long day and here is a video of our time exploring everglades national park let me know what we left off in the comments and let's jump into it [Music] to begin the day we drove about an hour south of miami past the city of homestead to the southern portion of everglades national park we have made it to everglades national park if you can hear it but it's kind of cool that there's all these birds greeting us after driving past the everglades sign our first stop was at the earnest f co visitor center [Music] so we are here right now and we're gonna make our way all the way down to flamingo and then drive all the way back out and go to the shark valley area later today i didn't even know that this existed but apparently there's a florida panther the ernest f coe visitor center is a great introduction to the park it has exhibits on everything from water to the park's history to the difference between alligators and crocodiles i definitely recommend trying to understand the landscape of the everglades as crazy as just a few inches of elevation can make a huge difference in the landscape once you leave the visitor center you'll make it to the entrance for the park which is where you pay your fee and you can get a map from the entrance to the end of the road at flamingo it's about 38 miles if you follow these videos you know we stop pretty much everywhere we possibly can and our first stop was at the royal palm area [Music] these people obviously know something that we don't know the vultures are attacking these cars so hopefully our car is uh okay over there after researching it these were black vultures and they loved tearing up rubber components on the cars this is the craziest thing i've ever seen there are vultures literally everywhere here on the cars on the buildings never seen anything like that before pops is taking one for the team and going back to protect the car from the vultures while we do this uh less than one mile trail there are two trails in this area and the first that we headed out on was the anhinga trail so there is a basket where they put tarps where you can actually take them for your car but there weren't any there so we couldn't cover our car which is why pops is watching for vultures they look like they're pretty damaging i have no idea but let me know in the comments if you do because definitely look like they could mess a car up the anhinga trail is a beautiful and short wheelchair accessible trail that's great for seeing wildlife along the trail you'll often see birds like the anhinga bird and you may even see some alligators if you're lucky as well [Music] first alligator or crocodile sighting right there [Music] after about a tenth of a mile the trail connects with an elevated boardwalk that lets you walk through the sawgrass marsh this is the most popular trail in the park outside of the shark valley area as it's one of your best places to see wildlife there's lots of little offshoots on this trail that lead kind of to overlook so there's one right there and then another one right here this is definitely a trail you're going to want to take your time on as there's some great places to just sit and look for wildlife if you're into birds there's definitely a lot of birds to see and they said the winter months are some of the best times to see birds in the park pop sent me this photo of another person's car so apparently it was a good idea that we had somebody watching for vultures the trail continues on the elevated boardwalk before it connects back up with the road that takes you back to your car this is basically the end of the trail right here and then you just turn around to go back i'm sure at one point this was a good viewing platform but now it's basically overgrown on the way back i was looking down on my phone texting pops and someone was like hey look up and there's an alligator right next to the trail so thank you kind stranger check it out there's one right next to the trail [Music] that ended up being a pretty awesome trail beautiful views and two alligators or crocodiles i can figure out which ones they were and i'll update that right here but overall great easy trail for the whole family right in the park pops covered up our car for us and then he got to see the alligator crocodile i'm not sure which it's pretty sweet though right it was cool right there by the road i mean you can reach out and touch them i don't know why don't touch the crocodiles there's no signs that they don't this area also had a second trail called the gumbo limbo trail which is less than a half mile so we did that one before heading back to the car [Music] forests like this only exist in southern florida because of the tropical conditions found here it's crazy that these little areas of water says that it's the decaying matter that kind of creates a hole that the water stays in and it gives the wildlife a place to get a drink when it's dry this is the strangler fig this is just a cool trail it's way different than the other one in this area lots of interesting plants to see definitely worth doing both of them this tree right here is the gumbo limbo that the trail is named for there's a lot of gumbo limbos at the end of the trail [Music] i'm sure this probably goes without saying but there are mosquitoes everywhere there's one i just knocked off of my camera hand so bring mosquito bug spray just like that we ended the gumbo limbo trail and now we're heading back to our car to make sure the vultures didn't destroy it we're heading on so the vultures must have found something to eat they have basically left the parking lot and now they're up in the sky this rv right here was covered in tarps when we left and it looks like the vultures have peeled them all off [Music] so i guess the vultures like these rubber pieces so you can see them all over the ground i guess they pull them off at the cars pops protected our car though vulture free nice work these things up and put them back for the next person yeah there's a little box over there where you can get the stuff for the covering your car here's the area where they have tarps that you can put on your car we made it to our second stop at the pine lands parking area and look it's vulture free this is another less than half mile trail in the park believe it or not they actually had fires in the everglades i guess the pine forests are a lot of what burn when there's fires according to the park website this trail was also technically wheelchair accessible but there was definitely some parts where the roots had pushed up the road this is another unique short trail in the area that takes you through a pine forest [Music] i'm just going to go out on a limb and say you don't want to be here in the summertime we are here in november and it is muggy and sweaty and warm it was like a way hotter i don't think this would be very fun it would be tougher so pops actually grew up in new jersey and he has a comment on humidity what's your comment yeah when you're in a humid climate once you're wet you're wet there's no drying right that's one thing's beautiful about southern california you dry real quick because of the dryness of it but you're in humidity you're wet you stay wet so we're gonna be sweaty all day all day pops pointed out this little shell snail that's like seven feet off of the ground now here we go tree snails they sleep half of their lives and they hold on to the trees so that's what we've been seeing we saw dozens of the tree snails along this trail and it was pretty fun to see something like that it was interesting that that was more of a forested area right there and then now we're back kind of these sparse pines again [Music] all right we made it back to the start of the trail so now we're heading onto the next one this park is so flat that when we left this area we actually went over a pass that was three feet after going over the pass we saw an unmarked area with an elevated boardwalk so we pulled off it ended up being a short three minute walk to an area called the skeleton forest in here there was these trees that were white and sparse and i think skeleton was a really good name for them so we didn't even see this spot on the map we just pulled off because we saw another car here but definitely a cool little spot to pull off at right after the rock reef pass five minutes drive later we were at the second most popular trail in this section of the park [Music] this is trail number three or four of the day so far it's the pahaokee trail all these trails in this park are super short so this one's less than a quarter of a mile basically just takes you to an observation tower right there the sign says pahaokee is a seminal phrase meaning grassy waters it's a good way to describe this area this trail is also wheelchair accessible as it has a slight grade that takes you up to an observation area it's beautiful to see the water and the grass stretching out in front of you yeah you can see we're only about six eight feet off of the ground but it is technically an overlook in this area since it's so flat so we've got some more of these skeleton forest type trees that we just saw as well we have made it to the overlook there you go grassy waters nothing but grassy waters out there wow this sign is crazy so this shows the original everglades so it used to run off of the lake and come all the way down to here but this shows what it looks like now with the cities and agriculture and everything that kind of stops the runoff just to show you that we've actually gained elevation on this trail there are stairs to go down this part of the trail is probably another great area to see birds but we didn't see any wildlife when we were there after another quick drive we made it to the next short hike in the park up next we have the mahogany hammock trail which is less than a half mile and what's cool is that they call these area hammocks because it's kind of like a tree island out in the middle of the everglades hammock areas are fascinating as they're technically contrasting ecosystems that grow just a few inches elevated above the wetlands so there's a little tree island in front of us and this is the quote-unquote river that we're crossing to get into it this half mile trail is wheelchair accessible as well as you're on another elevated platform this trail was one of my favorites as the hammock area was really dense and there was a ton of different plant life to see [Music] i think eventually these trees are just gonna take over this entire trail here's another of our good friends the strangler fig we've seen a few times on the trails [Music] so what's interesting about this park is that even though it seems visually similar at a lot of the different trails there's a ton of different intricacies that you understand when you read about them especially because this park is basically only a few feet of elevation like across the entire thing so even changes of six inches or a foot can make a big difference as you walked around you can see those little pockets of water we showed on previous trails that collected water for the dry months and that animals could come drink from here is a massive mahogany tree that the trail is named after says they got so big because they were hidden from the people who logged the area [Music] it's basically the last of the trails we're doing this morning a few viewing areas and we're gonna make it to flamingo visitor center this is nine mile pond i've seen some pictures of crocodiles being on the um beach area kind of right here but none today still a pretty area though it also looks like there's some canoes i don't know if those are rentals or what they are but there's one person out in the water [Music] as we left nine mile pond we arrived at the end of the southern portion which was the flamingo visitor center [Music] we've made it to the end of the road the visitor center at flamingo i don't know what that building is they're working on right there but it's pretty cool if you could walk across that top part the ranger told us that that building is the future home of the flamingo visitor center right now it's just a small one-room area with a couple things to purchase but not much to see so the guy at the visitor center told us to drive down here to florida bay which is where one third of all of the everglades is in that florida bay area so it's an overlook and then there's two marinas up here one you can often see manatee at and one you can see crocodiles at and basically everything else we've seen in the park so far has been an alligator not a crocodile there's also a campground out here and some kayaking trails so it'd probably be a pretty cool place to explore [Music] all right we've made it to the end of the drivable portion of everglades there's the florida bay this small overlook was beautiful even though there wasn't a lot to see other than a few keys out in the bay [Music] what's cool about where we're at is that we basically made it to the southern tip of florida outside of the florida keys so you can see that that's where we're at right there southern tip of florida after leaving the florida bay area we headed back to the marina to get some snacks and to look for wildlife [Music] general store is a great place to get food or snacks or coffee and then you can also rank kayaks here and there's often manatees in the harbor over there amenities you basically just look around and see some bubbles and then they pop up for a second [Music] we got lucky when we were there and there was a manatee that was hanging out about 15 feet off the dock so we got to see it come up a couple of times there was also some sort of hawk there sitting on the sign and a crocodile out in the distance that ends our time in the southern part of everglades national park now we're gonna go get some lunch and then it's about a two and a half hour drive to shark valley which is the northern part of the park the two entrances to everglades are pretty far away from each other so it is a long full day if you want to see both of them like we did we made it to our lunch spot the everglades gator grill and we are greeted pop says that he's had gator before we're just gonna go in here and see what the top things are and just get those when people visit florida they often want to try eating gators so we decided that we would try and let you know how it is gator grill is the most recommended and it's right outside of the national park [Music] so we got the gator bites with the sauce that comes with it and then we got the gator tacos figured that we're from california had to try gator tacos cheers it's good tender has a good flavor i like it all right so pops is just going st straight straight gator bite kind of like a chewy steak chewy steak is that a good steak thing it makes it a little better but it doesn't have like that really nice flavor that you get like from beef that officially ends our time in the southern portion of everglades now we're driving about two hours north to the shark valley area to the shark valley tram tour which is another popular thing to do in the park on our way north we decided we couldn't leave everglades national park without doing an air boat tour the northern part of the park is where there's many of these tours so we stopped at one on the way we made it to gator park and we're gonna do an airboat tour it was a rainy weekday in florida so it wasn't too busy and we grabbed tickets for the next tour we are on the two o'clock tour in 15 minutes the tour was about 45 minutes with 25 minutes on the airboat and then 20 minutes in a wildlife show after we loaded into the airboat with about 25 of our closest friends and set out for the tour the first 10 minutes went slow as our guide told us about the area and about the wildlife that we could see and we kept our eyes peeled to see if we found any gators eventually we hit the open water and our guide hit the gas and we started flying through the marshland [Music] it was such a cool experience being able to glide over the grass and the water and to fly back and forth on the airboat after racing around for quite a while we slowed down again to look for alligators almost immediately we came upon an alligator which was incredible to see it didn't seem to care at all that we were there and it hung around for about five minutes just following our boat here are some shots from my zoom lens i wasn't that close but it looks like it with the zoom [Music] eventually we said goodbye and headed back to where we boarded the boat after getting back we headed into the small exhibit area they had to see the wildlife show what'd you think of the airboat tour i thought it was great yeah it was kind of fun very tame but it was fun got to see an alligator too yeah also those were alligators yesterday not crocodiles crocodiles are only in the salt and brackish water the 10-minute show was a nice addition as we got to see a bunch of different animals and they told us a lot about each one i'm sure if you had a family this would be an especially fun add-on [Music] finished our airboat tour and the alligator show a little cheesy but overall pretty fun on to our last spot in everglades for the day from gator park it was a 15-minute drive to the shark valley visitor center which is one of the most popular areas in the park entering everglades national park again all right we made it to our last stop in everglades shark valley and we are going to do a shark valley tram tour you can either rent a bicycle or take the tram but it's 15 miles and we had a long day so we're just doing the tram we arrived about 30 minutes before our tour so we took the time to explore the small visitor center before it started alligator and crocodile skulls what are alligators up to swimming waiting walking not eating you apparently you can look inside nothing there's nothing inside an elevator stay alert active alligator nests getting ready for our tram tour yeah this is gonna be great the tram tour from shark valley takes about two hours to complete and it's honestly an amazing way to see this part of the park i imagine if you take a bike you might miss a lot of things as there's no one to point anything out for you along the entire tour we had a guide who was telling us about all the different things that we were seeing and stopping for any animals that we saw we saw dozens of birds and quite a few alligators during our time on the tram also i should note that you definitely want to book your tram in advance during popular times in the park it easily sells out and you don't want to miss this incredible experience in everglades according to our guide this is basically the central area of the freshwater marsh part of everglades national park it's basically a field of sawgrass and often floods in the winter months which is why it's called the river of grass here are just a few of the animals that we saw during the first half of our tour [Music] at the halfway point of the tour you'll arrive at the shark valley observation tower our guide gave us about 30 minutes to explore this area including walking up to the top of the tower [Music] the tower was built in 1964 and it was part of a project that was designed to modernize the national parks before their 50th anniversary this is the sister tower of the one in great smoky mountains national park on top of clingman's dome check it out there's an alligator right below us the tower is technically the highest point in everglades national park sitting at a whopping 45 feet above the ground it's said that you can see up to 20 miles away from this vantage point since it's so flat [Music] what do you think pops this is a beautiful spot here the panoramic view seeing the rain coming down alligators alligators water down below it's a really nice spot worth coming here unfortunately the observation tower deck top part is not open anymore but you can still get some great views walking out here and then looking at that alligator down below us [Music] now we're heading back to our tram for 45 minutes back finishing our time in everglades national park [Music] i spent about as much time as i possibly could up here just soaking in the views of this amazing national park one of the benefits of taking the bike is definitely being able to spend as much time here as you would like here's the alligator we were looking at from above it's pretty cool what's cool about this tower is it's the sister observation tower to clingmans dome which was in great smoky mountains national park if you want to see that one check it out right here the 45 minute ride back was a relaxing way to spend our last few minutes in everglades national park even though it was cloudy along the way we got to see a little bit of a sunset as well [Music] here are a few of the animals that we saw on the way back [Music] what do you think the tram is a great way to go uh it's very relaxing lots of good information in the background saw lots of animals i would totally recommend the trend i agree that completes our one day in the everglades be sure to like and subscribe we will see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 50,151

Keywords:

Id: A2D1eZY98QI

Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 06 2022