United States · Florida
Everglades National Park (Homestead)
The largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and the only place on earth where alligators and crocodiles live side by side.
The Everglades is not a swamp but a river: a sheet of fresh water tens of miles wide and only inches deep, sliding south across sawgrass prairie, cypress and mangrove to the shallow bay at the tip of Florida. It protects roughly 1.5 million acres of subtropical wilderness, carries World Heritage and biosphere listings, and is the one place where alligators and crocodiles share the same water. The land is famously flat, so the reward here is wildlife and stillness rather than scenery, and the park is best understood from a boardwalk at dawn or a canoe in the middle of the afternoon.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
English
Currency
USD
Timezone
UTC-4
Why you'll love Everglades National Park (Homestead)
The wildlife alligators an arm's length from a paved boardwalk, spoonbills and wood storks working the shallows, and manatees and crocodiles where the fresh water meets the sea
River of grass a landscape you have to be told is moving, drifting south so slowly that the whole park is really one enormous, very slow river
On the water marked paddling routes through mangrove tunnels and open bay, with backcountry platforms to sleep on and nothing but wading birds for company
Dry-season timing as the water drops, animals crowd the pools that are left, so the months with the best wildlife are also the ones without the heat or the mosquitoes
Best time to visit
Nov-Apr
25-29° days
25.472° N, 80.476° W
UTC-4 · America/New York
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Weather & when to go to Everglades National Park (Homestead)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Nov-Apr
Watch for Jun-Nov cyclones & hurricanes risk · Jun, Sep monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Everglades National Park (Homestead)
June to September is the wet season, and it is genuinely hard: daily thunderstorms, heavy humidity, mosquitoes that can end a walk in minutes, and wildlife scattered across flooded marsh instead of concentrated at the waterholes. June and September are the worst of it, and September also sits at the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Top things to do in Everglades National Park (Homestead)
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Anhinga Trail - alligators from a boardwalk at Royal Palm
nature wildlife safari 👍 PopularA short paved loop and boardwalk over Taylor Slough, just inside the Homestead entrance, and the surest wildlife in the park. In the dry months alligators lie along the bank in numbers, anhingas hang their wings out to dry on the rails, and herons, turtles and garfish work the water below you. Go at first light or late afternoon.
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Shark Valley - the loop road and the observation tower
nature wildlife scenic 👍 PopularA 15-mile paved loop pushing straight into the sawgrass off the Tamiami Trail, with alligators strung along the borrow canal beside it. Ride the narrated tram, hire a bike, or walk the first stretch, and climb the concrete spiral tower at the halfway point for the only wide view of the river of grass most visitors get.
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Flamingo - road's end on Florida Bay
nature wildlife scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedThe main park road runs 38 miles from the entrance to a marina on the bay, where manatees drift into the basin and American crocodiles haul out on the banks in plain sight. It is the launching point for Florida Bay, the backcountry and the Wilderness Waterway, and the campground behind it is the only real bed inside the park.
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Nine Mile Pond - the marked canoe trail
adventure nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedA signed loop of roughly five miles through sawgrass, open ponds and low mangrove tunnels near Flamingo, shallow enough that you push off the bottom in places. Numbered poles keep you on the route, and it is the easiest way to swap the boardwalk view of the Everglades for being inside it.
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Pa-hay-okee Overlook - the river of grass from a platform
scenicA very short boardwalk off the main road to a raised deck over open sawgrass prairie, named with the Seminole and Miccosukee words for grassy water. Flat country makes this the rare spot where the sheet flow reads as a landscape rather than a fact you were told.
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Mahogany Hammock - a boardwalk into a tree island
nature wildlifeA loop through one of the hardwood hammocks that sit a few inches higher than the marsh and so never flood: dense shade, air plants and strangler figs, one of the largest living mahogany trees in the country, and barred owls that call in daylight.
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Gumbo Limbo Trail - the tourist tree loop
nature wildlifeThe quieter half of the Royal Palm pair, a paved loop into jungly hammock thick with ferns, royal palms and the peeling red bark of the gumbo limbo, nicknamed the tourist tree for looking permanently sunburnt. Fifteen minutes, and a completely different Everglades from the marsh next door.
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Ten Thousand Islands - boats and kayaks from the Gulf Coast
nature wildlife adventureThe park's western entrance at Everglades City opens onto a maze of mangrove islets running out into the Gulf, worked by dolphins, ospreys and manatees. Concession boat trips make the introduction; kayakers use it as the northern end of the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway down to Flamingo.
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Hell's Bay Canoe Trail - the mangrove maze
adventureNamed for being hell to get into and hell to get out of, a marked tunnel route where the mangroves close overhead and the channel narrows to a paddle's width. Backcountry platforms at Lard Can, Pearl Bay and Hell's Bay let you sleep out on the water. Take the map, the tide and the bug net seriously.
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Airboat rides on the Tamiami Trail - the classic Everglades hour
adventure 👍 PopularLoud, fast and frankly a bit of a circus, but a genuine way to cross open sawgrass fast. Only a handful of authorised concessions run inside the park boundary along the Tamiami Trail; the rest of the operators you pass are on private or tribal land just outside it.
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Nike Missile Site HM-69 - the Cold War in the marsh
historyA preserved Nike Hercules missile base near Royal Palm, built after the Cuban Missile Crisis and left with its barns, missile assembly building and guard dog kennels standing. Rangers run tours in the dry season, and it is the strangest thing in the park by a distance.
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Snake Bight Trail - mudflats and wading birds
nature wildlife safariA flat mile and a half through mangrove and buttonwood to a boardwalk over the tidal flats of Florida Bay, where flamingos occasionally turn up among the spoonbills and shorebirds. The mosquitoes here are legendary even by Everglades standards, so this is a dry-season walk only.
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Robert Is Here - the fruit stand on the way in
foodAn open-air stand on the Florida City approach, trading since the 1950s, piled with tropical fruit most Americans never see and known for milkshakes made from key lime, guanabana or mamey sapote. The traditional stop on the drive in or the drive out.
Best areas to stay in Everglades National Park (Homestead)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Homestead and Florida City
First-time visitors $Workaday farm towns at the main gate
Explore hotels in Homestead and Florida City →
Flamingo
Campers & paddlers $Road's end camp beside Florida Bay
Explore hotels in Flamingo →
Everglades City and Chokoloskee
Gulf Coast & paddling $$Stone-crab fishing village, Gulf side
Explore hotels in Everglades City and Chokoloskee →
Miami and the southern suburbs
City-based visitors $$Full city, park within reach
Explore hotels in Miami and the southern suburbs →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Everglades National Park (Homestead)
Getting to & around Everglades National Park (Homestead)
Getting there
Fly into Miami, hire a car, and drive about an hour southwest through Homestead to the main entrance
Flight
Miami International (MIA)
Roughly 70 km southwest of the airport to the main entrance beyond Homestead, about an hour by road on the turnpike extension and then State Road 9336. Shark Valley is a separate approach, about 45 minutes due west of the airport along the Tamiami Trail. Fort Lauderdale is the other realistic arrival airport, adding around 40 minutes. There is no public transport into the park, so nearly everyone collects a hire car at the airport or joins a guided tour from Miami.
Drive
Homestead / Florida City
The southern approach from Miami on the turnpike extension or US-1, then State Road 9336 to the Ernest F. Coe entrance and the road to Flamingo
Drive
Tamiami Trail
The east-west route across the peninsula on US-41, serving Shark Valley from Miami and continuing to Everglades City and the Gulf Coast entrance
Drive
Florida City
The northbound approach from the Keys on the Overseas Highway, which puts the park entrance minutes off the road home
Coach
Miami
Guided coach and small-van tours from Miami are the only practical option without a car; there is no scheduled bus service into the park
Getting around
Hire car
Essential. The three entrances are not linked by any road inside the park, so each is a separate drive from your base
TBC
Tram tour
The narrated two-hour tram is how most people cover the Shark Valley loop, with stops for wildlife and time at the tower
TBC
Bicycle
Rentals at Shark Valley make the loop road a fine ride; near Flamingo the Snake Bight and Rowdy Bend tracks are ridable in the dry season
TBC
Canoe or kayak
Rentals and marked trails at Flamingo and on the Gulf Coast; the only way to reach most of the park, which is water rather than land
TBC
Boat tour
Concession trips run into Florida Bay and the backcountry from Flamingo, and through the Ten Thousand Islands from Everglades City
TBC
Walking
Works at each stop and never between them: the boardwalks are short, and the sights along the main road sit many miles apart
Free
Day trips from Everglades National Park (Homestead)
Biscayne National Park
Half dayReef and bay park
The Everglades' opposite number, almost entirely underwater: glass-bottom, snorkel and dive trips run out to the reef and the wrecks of the Maritime Heritage Trail. The visitor centre and shoreline can be walked without getting on a boat, but the park is the water.
Getting there
car | tour
About 20 min by road east of Homestead, then a concession boat
Key Largo and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park
Full dayCoral reef and keys
The first undersea park in the country, with snorkel and glass-bottom boat runs out to the reef and the submerged Christ of the Abyss statue, plus easy mangrove paddling and a long causeway drive through the upper Keys.
Getting there
car
About 45 min south by road from Florida City on US-1
Big Cypress National Preserve
Full dayCypress swamp
Dwarf cypress, strand swamps and the gravel Loop Road, plus boardwalks over gator-filled ponds right off the highway. This is the Florida panther's stronghold, and rangers run wet walks into the cypress domes that are the best swamp experience in South Florida.
Getting there
car
About 1 hr west of Shark Valley along the Tamiami Trail
Everglades City and the Ten Thousand Islands
Full dayMangrove islands
The park's Gulf entrance, where mangrove islets scatter out to sea and stone-crab boats work out of a tiny grid-planned town. Boat trips and kayak hire go from the same waterfront, and the old trading post at Chokoloskee tells the frontier half of the story.
Getting there
car | tour
About 1.5-2 hr by road from Homestead via the Tamiami Trail
Miami and South Beach
Full dayCity and art deco beach
The counterweight to a week of sawgrass: art deco frontages along Ocean Drive, Cuban coffee windows and dominoes on Calle Ocho in Little Havana, and the painted warehouse walls of Wynwood.
Getting there
car
About 1 hr north by road from Homestead
A little history of Everglades National Park (Homestead)
The Everglades is a young landscape sitting on old limestone, shaped over the last few thousand years by fresh water spilling out of Lake Okeechobee and creeping south. Calusa people on the southwest coast and Tequesta on the southeast built the first settlements around it, and both were effectively gone by the 1700s through disease and slaving raids. Seminole and Miccosukee families pushed deep into the sawgrass during the Seminole Wars of the nineteenth century, where the terrain did what no treaty did, and their descendants still hold land along the Tamiami Trail.
For most of the twentieth century the story was drainage. Canals cut in the 1880s, a state campaign to empty the marsh for farmland, and the completion of the Tamiami Trail in 1928, which laid a road across the sheet flow like a dam. Plume hunters shooting wading birds for the millinery trade nearly finished the herons and egrets, and killed an Audubon warden near Flamingo in 1905. The counter-argument arrived with Marjory Stoneman Douglas, whose 1947 book renamed the place the river of grass in the public mind, in the same year the park was dedicated. Restoration is now the largest project of its kind anywhere, and the park still fights the water it was built to protect: too little of it, arriving at the wrong time of year, alongside pythons that have hollowed out the mammal population.
Hamilton Disston buys four million acres of Florida wetland and the first drainage canals are cut
Audubon warden Guy Bradley is shot dead near Flamingo while confronting plume hunters, turning national opinion against the feather trade
The Tamiami Trail opens between Tampa and Miami, cutting across the sheet flow that feeds the southern Everglades
Congress authorises Everglades National Park, the first US park set aside for its ecosystem rather than its scenery
Marjory Stoneman Douglas publishes The Everglades: River of Grass, and President Truman dedicates the park in December
The Big Cypress jetport is abandoned after a single runway, following one of the first modern environmental campaigns in the country
The park is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, having already been named an international biosphere reserve
Hurricane Andrew crosses the park and flattens much of the surrounding farmland around Homestead
Congress authorises the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the largest ecosystem restoration ever attempted
Burmese pythons, loose from the pet trade, establish a breeding population and sightings of rabbits, foxes and raccoons collapse
A bridged section of the Tamiami Trail opens, letting water flow south under the road again for the first time in 85 years
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Limited
Power
Type A / B
120 V, 60 Hz
Dialing
+1
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The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Everglades National Park (Homestead)
▸ When is the best time to visit the Everglades?
November through April, and January to April most of all. That is the dry season: humidity drops, the mosquitoes become bearable, and falling water levels concentrate alligators, wading birds and fish into the pools that are left, so you see far more with far less effort. June and September are the months to avoid outright.
▸ How many days do you need in the Everglades?
Two full days covers it properly: one for the main road from the Homestead entrance down to Flamingo, and one for Shark Valley. Add a third or fourth if you want to paddle a canoe trail or drive round to the Gulf Coast, which is a long way from the other entrances.
▸ Can you see the whole park from one entrance?
No, and this catches people out. The Homestead entrance, Shark Valley and the Gulf Coast at Everglades City are three separate approaches with no road connecting them inside the park, so moving between them means driving right around the outside.
▸ Will you actually see alligators?
In the dry season, almost certainly: they line the boardwalk at the Anhinga Trail and the canal along the Shark Valley loop road in numbers. American crocodiles are the rarer sighting, and Flamingo and the brackish coast are where to look for them.
▸ Are the airboat tours part of the national park?
Mostly not. Only a small number of authorised concessions operate inside the park boundary along the Tamiami Trail, and airboats are barred from most of the wilderness. The many operators signposted along the highways are running on private or tribal land outside the park, which is fine, but it is not the same thing.
▸ Is the Everglades expensive?
It is one of the cheaper national parks to visit. Entry is by the usual park pass, and Homestead and Florida City are unremarkable working towns where beds cost noticeably less than anywhere else in South Florida. The costs that add up are the hire car you cannot do without, and the boat, tram and airboat trips.
▸ How bad are the mosquitoes?
In the wet season they are a serious problem rather than an annoyance, and the mangrove trails near Flamingo are the worst of it, capable of driving people back to the car within minutes. From December to March they are a minor issue at most. Repellent and long sleeves solve the shoulder months.
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