Camping at the Everglades in the Winter

The bad part of camping in the Everglades is that there is no electricity or water at your site. The good FAR outweighs the bad. The price is only $8 per night (senior rate) versus $50+ at most of Florida parks. The campsites are huge. There’s no wifi service and only random cell phone service so you can really get away from it all. Bugs have been minimal though we hear it is pretty terrible in the summer. It’s quiet so that you can watch and listen to the birds playing in the trees. There are quite a few hiking trails starting near the campground (even with morning walks every day, I haven’t walked them all). The weather has been perfect (warm during the day and cool at night) with flowers blooming.

Beside the campground is a gorgeous lake with at least one alligator (not shown). I’m not sure if I’d want one of the sites beside the lake since alligators have been known to travel up to the campground.

The camp programs have been wonderful. Some of the programs require reservations to limit the size, but they are all free. So today, for instance, we went on a bike ride where the park provided bikes, helmets, and water bottles for everyone.  For free! By the way, the park had a rule that you have to be over 12 years old for this program. That’s OK, but since I’m the height of an average 9 year old, I just barely was able to use their bikes. Teach me for being short!

We learned about the habitat restoration the park is doing. Invasive species were removed and the park is being brought back to what it looked like originally in certain areas. 

Besides learning from the rangers, the different people in the group had different interests. One couple was looking to see an endangered tree snail (Liguus snail) that lives primarily in the Everglades. They found this one about 20’ up in the tree. The story the ranger told us that every snail had different coloring depending on which hammock the snail lived. Years ago, people decided to collect the different colored snails like they collect Pokémon cards. Not only did they collect them, some people decided they would make the snails they had collected more rare and valuable by destroying the hammock where they found the snails! No wonder the snail became endangered!

I thought snail hunting was pretty cool, so here’s another picture of a tree snail we saw later in the week.

An unexpected danger to the tour was poisonwood. I’ve never heard of it before, but the plant is supposed to be much worse than poison ivy or poison oak. It grows along the paths in places so we had to make sure we didn’t brush up against it.

The program emphasized the change in the ecosystems. I’d walked much of the trip during my morning walks, but the ranger explained things so I understand much more.