A cypress pole pushes silently through tannin-dark water as Jack Shealy navigates his skiff forward, the hull slipping through the Turner River and deeper into Big Cypress. Waterlogged prairies give way to shadowed bayous where alligators and turtles bask along banks, unmoving in the heat. A green heron balances on a floating log; above, an osprey nest stirs. “That osprey’s been in those trees for 25 years,” he says, watching it spread its wings and tilt toward the sky.
This is the Everglades, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and one of the most biologically extraordinary places on Earth. Sprawling across more than 1.5 million acres of southern Florida, it encompasses Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, the Miccosukee Indian Reservation, the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, and a mosaic of saw grass prairies, mangrove forests, and cypress swamps that together form a slow-moving, shallow river flowing quietly toward the Gulf of Mexico. Visitors come from around the world to wade through or glide across these wetlands, hoping to catch glimpses of Florida panthers, manatees, and both alligators and crocodiles—in the only place on Earth where the two reptiles share the same wild water.
But for those who grew up here, the Everglades is something harder to name. “People think nobody lives here, but this place is part of our identity,” Shealy says. “When I’m here, I’m at home.”
For generations, people have lived in rhythm with this water: the Miccosukee and Seminole, whose homeland has centered on this part of South Florida for centuries; and Shealy and his fellow Gladesmen, a historic community descended from the self-sufficient settlers who carved out lives in the swamps well before the region was mapped or managed. There are also the fishers and traders who have long worked the Gulf’s unruly mangrove edges, reading tides and seasons the way others read clocks. But development and water management, including draining and clear-cutting projects that lasted through the mid–20th century, have altered the landscape. The Everglades has since lost nearly 70 percent of its tree islands—elevated patches of dense, biodiverse land that yield dry ground for nesting birds, native hardwood trees, and, for the Miccosukee, generations of farming and ceremony.
“We used to hunt for deer and rabbits. We used to grow pumpkins and squash. We used to harvest medicinal plants, before wildlife thinned and water quality declined,” says Betty Osceola, Miccosukee Tribe member, environmental advocate, and guide with the Indigenous-owned Buffalo Tiger Airboat Tours. “We’re taught each generation is put here to be caretakers of the landscape, to leave it better than how we inherited it.” Osceola’s activism focuses on healing the ecosystem: replanting native species, restoring habitats, and pushing toward models that nourish the environment instead of controlling it. “When I go out on my airboat, sometimes alone, I’ll just park and look,” she says. “This is God’s church.”
Shealy grew up and still lives in the swamps of Big Cypress—frogging at night, fishing at first light, eating what the land and water provided. These long-held Gladesmen practices, too, are becoming harder to maintain. Regulations and environmental shifts have changed what can be hunted, caught, or gathered on federal lands, and rising costs have forced many families to leave. Through his nonprofit, the Gladesmen Heritage Foundation, Shealy is trying to chart a culture that risks disappearing, not for nostalgia, but as something still lived. The foundation partners with museums on exhibits, runs youth workshops, and hosts cultural tours. “It’s always been about adapting,” Shealy says. “Whatever it takes to stay.”
Farther south, in the intertidal estuaries of the Ten Thousand Islands archipelago, the Smallwood Store offers a window into the region’s human past—still visible to visitors who know where to look. “Everybody came here by boat,” says Lynn Smallwood McMillin, whose grandfather, Ted, founded the Chokoloskee Island trading post in 1906. For decades, Indigenous families, settlers, and anglers convened at the store, exchanging goods and conversation in a place where watery roads merged. Now a museum, it echoes with the stories of the old Everglades—a region that Smallwood McMillin says is “still more like Florida than any other place in the state.”
In February, the new Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center opened in nearby Everglades City, at the national park’s Gulf Coast entrance, replacing a facility destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017. It’s named for the activist whose 1947 book The Everglades: River of Grass transformed public perception of this unique ecosystem and drummed up a movement to protect it. From there, visitors can head out to the Ten Thousand Islands by kayak or tour boat—or venture inland, deeper into the wetland labyrinth.
“This is my safe space,” says Jack Shealy of his home in Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve. A member of the region’s Gladesmen community, Shealy has made sure the perspective of these Everglades residents is brought into county meetings, state conversations, and planning rooms. He also shares the story of the Gladesmen through his ecotourism company, Everglades Adventure Tours. In the Gladesmen swamp camps, moonshining and rum running—Al Capone may have run operations here during Prohibition—were once as familiar as fiddle music. “For our grandparents, that was part of their way of life,” says Shealy—"keeping the lights on.”
Photos by Vanessa Díaz
The Miccosukee resisted forced removal and were recognized as a sovereign nation in 1962; today an estimated 640 members live within Big Cypress National Preserve and surrounding lands, their culture kept alive through language, open-fire cooking in the communal chickee hut, and life on the water. Betty Osceola, a member of the Panther Clan, shares the Miccosukee perspective as a guide with Buffalo Tiger Airboat Tours. Everglades National Park hosts 750 native varieties of seed-bearing plants, including swamp lilies (pictured) and more wild orchid species than any other national park in the continental United States.
Photos by Vanessa Díaz
The Everglades encompasses nine distinct habitats, including the dry forest ecosystem known as “hardwood hammocks” and cypress trees draped in Spanish moss (pictured), their aerial roots (called “knees”) rising through the water’s surface like sentinels. In the late 1800s, C.S. “Ted” Smallwood arrived at the coastal edge of the Everglades—teaching himself Spanish and Muscogee to communicate with the region’s diverse traders. In 1906, he opened a general store and post office on Chokoloskee Island. The Smallwood Store, closed in 1982, is open to visitors today as a museum.
Photos by Vanessa Díaz
Aaron Tabor (at right) grew up on Chokoloskee Island; with his husband, David Ardelean (left), he now runs HavAnnA Café and the 1950s-era Parkway Motel & Marina, once Chokoloskee’s first fishing camp. “I see baton-rouge lichen growing on trees, a great blue heron wiggling its neck to catch a fish, water filled with bioluminescence in August,” Ardelean says—"there is nowhere else with this ecosystem.” Rainwater collects and moves slowly across the land, providing habitat for semi-aquatic reptiles such as alligators and crocodiles (pictured). But this ecosystem has shrunk as dry periods grow longer; in spring 2026, wildfires exacerbated by severe drought burned more than 20,000 acres.
Photos by Vanessa Díaz
The Everglades is home to more than 360 bird and 40 mammal species, including roseate spoonbills (pictured), great egrets, white-tailed deer, manatees, and the occasional Florida panther. Near Everglades City, the Smallwood Store’s heritage-listed stilted structure has outlasted hurricanes that sometimes flattened everything around it. Lynn Smallwood McMillin purchased the building after her mother’s passing; today, its shelves are laden with patent medicines, rattlesnake skins, and a shotgun once used for hunting alligators.
Photos by Vanessa Díaz
How to experience the Everglades
Everglades National Park makes for a rewarding day trip during a beachy vacation in South Florida. But the greater Everglades ecosystem—which stretches across 18,000 square miles of protected land—can also be the main focus of your itinerary. Here’s what travelers should know. —Hannah Walhout
When to go
The most comfortable time to visit is dry season, which typically runs November through April. In these milder months, temperatures usually stay within the 50s to 70s, with lower humidity (and fewer mosquitoes). The negligible rainfall and receding water also mean better opportunities for spotting wildlife, including alligators, manatees, and waterbirds.
How to get there
Most out-of-state visitors will fly into Miami International Airport, just 30 miles from the national park’s main entrance; it’s a terminus of the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41), one of two major highways that cross the Everglades. The other, Alligator Alley (I-75), is easily accessible from Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport. Southwest Florida International Airport near Fort Myers, about 70 miles from the park’s Gulf Coast entrance, is also a good option. Rent a car, as getting to the Everglades by public transit is difficult and rideshare services are not reliable in remote areas.
Everglades National Park has three land entrances, which are not interconnected within the park itself due to limited road systems. The main entrance is Homestead, on the east side; in this area, you can spot wildlife on nature walks through marshes, pinelands, and habitats known as “hardwood hammocks.” Also worth a trip is the Gulf Coast entrance in Everglades City, less than an hour’s drive from Naples—it’s the gateway for fishing, kayaking, and beach walks in the Ten Thousand Islands archipelago. Park passes can be purchased on site at the Homestead and Shark Valley entrances (cash not accepted) or online at recreation.gov.
No fees are required to enter Big Cypress National Preserve, but you’ll need a permit for camping or off-roading. There are two visitor centers along the Tamiami Trail in the southern part of the preserve. Miccosukee and Seminole reservation lands are off-limits for those who aren’t tribal members, except for certain areas designated for tourism (find more info on the Visit Florida website).
How to do it
Approved companies can arrange a multiday experience in and around the national park. The wildlife-focused operator Tour the Glades offers 3- and 4-day private trips out of Everglades City. For something longer, Sierra Club Outings’ 8-day “Everglades Eco Adventure” group tour includes swamp walks, kayaking, and a couple of nights of beach camping. More intrepid travelers can kayak-camp along the Gulf Coast on a private backcountry trip with Breakwater Expeditions.
Even on a short visit, it’s worth spending a few hours out on the water with a local guide. Everglades Adventure Tours offers a variety of tours in Big Cypress, including some by pole boat or swamp buggy (a local variety of off-road vehicle); the company is owned by the Shealy family, members of the region’s Gladesmen community, the descendants of early swamp settlers. On the Miccosukee Indian Reservation at the national park’s northern boundary, Indigenous guides (including environmental activist Betty Osceola) lead private or group excursions through a Miccosukee lens with Buffalo Tiger Airboat Tours.
For a more self-directed trip, the conservation nonprofit Friends of the Everglades (founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas) publishes a national park guide online.
Where to stop
Visit the Seminole-run Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, where a boardwalk winds between traditional buildings, or see artifacts and craft demonstrations at the Miccosukee Indian Village Museum. The Clyde Butcher Big Cypress Gallery displays pieces from the namesake photographer (known for his Florida landscapes and conservation work), and offers ecotours led by naturalists like Scott Randolph, a photographer and ethnobotanist. In Everglades City, the Museum of the Everglades explores more than two millennia of regional history; the Smallwood Store, just across a bridge on nearby Chokoloskee Island, is a monument to the city’s era as a frontier town.
Where to stay
The only hotel within the national park itself is Flamingo Lodge, opened in 2023, which has 24 rooms and an on-site restaurant. It’s adjacent to the park’s southernmost visitor center and marina, which also serves as a fourth park entrance for those arriving by water.
Near the main eastern entrance, Homestead and Florida City have a variety of budget hotels—or book a stay in nearby Miami, especially if you want something higher-end, such as the recently reopened Delano Miami Beach. On the Gulf side, Everglades City has plenty of comfortable, no-frills options, including the 1950s-era Parkway Motel & Marina on Chokoloskee. For a little more luxury, look to the Naples area, where you’ll find the beachfront Ritz-Carlton, Naples and its sibling golf resort, the Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburón, which will debut a renovation this fall.
