A vast subtropical wilderness of sawgrass marsh, mangroves and Florida Bay, home to alligators, crocodiles and wading birds
The Everglades is a slow-moving river of wetlands that flows south-west from Lake Okeechobee towards Florida Bay over a bed of limestone, and the sawgrass marshes it feeds earned it the name River of Grass. The park covers this landscape in a mosaic of freshwater sloughs, marl prairies, tropical hardwood hammocks, pinelands, cypress, mangrove forest and coastal and marine waters, and more than 86 per cent of it is designated wilderness. Its mangroves form the largest continuous mangrove system in the Western Hemisphere.
Wildlife is the main draw. The park is one of the few places where American alligators and American crocodiles live side by side, and it shelters 36 threatened or protected species, including the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee. Herons, egrets, anhingas and other wading birds gather in large numbers in the dry winter months, when water levels drop and fish concentrate in the remaining pools.
People have lived in and around the Everglades for thousands of years; the Calusa built shell mounds along the Gulf coast, one of which rises about 6 metres above the otherwise flat land. After the Seminole Wars, Seminole and Miccosukee people lived in relative isolation in the region, trading for a living, and small settlements grew up at Chokoloskee and Flamingo in the 1890s. From the early 1900s, drainage to turn the wetlands into farmland and building plots badly damaged the ecosystem, and the Tamiami Trail was cut across the marshes from 1928.
Congress authorised the park in 1934, and President Harry Truman dedicated it on 6 December 1947, a month after Marjory Stoneman Douglas published The Everglades: River of Grass, a book that helped rally public support for protecting the area. The park became an International Biosphere Reserve in 1976, a World Heritage Site in 1979 and a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 1987.
The Miccosukee and Seminole peoples, whose ancestors found refuge in this region during the Seminole Wars, are still part of the Everglades story: some members of both tribes continue to live within the park, and tribal representatives take part in approving park policies. Along the Gulf Coast, Everglades City and Chokoloskee grew from small trading settlements of fishermen, farmers and charcoal burners. Airboats, which many visitors associate with the Everglades, are banned inside the national park, where only low-powered motorboats, canoes and kayaks are allowed
The park has three entrances that do not connect, each at least an hour's drive from the others. From Homestead, the main park road runs past the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center and the Royal Palm area, where the 1.2-kilometre Anhinga Trail is the classic short walk for seeing alligators and birds, and continues 61 kilometres to Flamingo on Florida Bay. Shark Valley, on the Tamiami Trail west of Miami, has a 24-kilometre loop to a two-storey observation tower, covered on foot, by bicycle or on tram tours in the busy season. On the Gulf Coast near Everglades City, the Ten Thousand Islands can only be reached by water, and the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway links the coast to Flamingo for experienced paddlers. Ranger-led programmes run mainly in the dry season.
The dry season, roughly December to April, is the busiest and most comfortable time: temperatures are lower, mosquitoes are fewer and wildlife gathers around the remaining water, with birds especially plentiful in winter. The wet season from May to November is hot and rainy, mosquitoes can be abundant and many ranger programmes are suspended, though the marshes are green and visitor numbers are lower.
Checked against the sources on 29 October 2026. Opening times and fees can change — confirm before you go.
General guidance from our specialists, not official information.
The park is surrounded by other protected areas: Big Cypress National Preserve to the north along the Tamiami Trail, Biscayne National Park to the east, the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast, and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on Key Largo, at the start of the Florida Keys. Florida Bay stretches from the park's southern mangroves to the Keys, Miami is the gateway city for the Shark Valley entrance, and Naples and Fort Myers lie along the park's western edge
United States · 9 nights4★ HotelUnited States · 8 nights3★ LodgeThis guide was researched from the sources below and reviewed by our team on 29 October 2026. Facts under “Verified information” link to the page they were checked on; travel tips are general guidance. Photos are credited on each image. The ambient recording’s author and licence are shown in the sound player.
