{"id":5584,"date":"2026-10-15T05:54:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2026-10-17T07:48:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T11:48:34","slug":"florida-national-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/florida-national-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida National Parks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As part of a mini-vacation between two weddings more than 2,000 miles apart, we spent a bit of time in the Florida National Parks – Everglades<\/a>, Dry Tortugas<\/a>, and Biscayne<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everglades<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our travels, we were driving from Fort Myers, Florida southward to the Keys, passing through the Everglades National Park. The park seemed a natural stopping point in the roughly 240 mile trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we’d seen pictures of the Everglades and the airboats that skim across the grassy water, though this was definitely a first for us. There are a number of vendors, some official park concessions, others not – we’d decided on one through GetYourGuide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting there was interesting on it’s own. Driving west to east on Rt 41, there isn’t much – in fact, nothing except maybe “Alligator Alcatraz” ! And the pickup point was next to what appeared to be a pumping station – kinda sketchy – though it was part of the Taylor Wildlife Management area.<\/p>\n\n\n

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After a very brief safety briefing, we were off and seemingly flying across the water and grass, following what appeared to be “trails” (water channels) in the otherwise grassy landscape. The breeze was a welcome change from the stifling heat and humidity. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Our guide (the boat’s captain) stopping periodically to narrate about the glades, it’s formation, and the animals which call it home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And while the baby alligators were really cute – and reminiscent of the baby dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, needless to say, we did NOT get out of the boat! Come to find out, the Everglades is home to other critters, such as bear and deer. Seemed unlikely, yet our captain had the receipts and showed us a video on his phone!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had been a quick trip, yet fun and factually interesting. We returned to our launch point, climbed into the sweltering car, and continued to the Park’s Visitor Center and signage cameo.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dry Tortugas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second waypoint in our National Parks of Florida adventure was Dry Tortugas National Park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not so easy to visit, the only choice is between a 2-1\/2hr ferry or a 35min seaplane. Both costly, the seaplane more than double the ferry cost, yet IMHO, the much preferred option for a better experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first plane trip departing Key West at 8am, arriving 2hrs before the first ferry. With the 10 passengers on the plane, we double the parks inhabitants – the “park” (the fort) was basically empty except for the National Park Service employees. Very enjoyable!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biscayne<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing on our journey, we said goodbye to the Keys and headed north toward Miami, stopping at Biscayne National Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of a mini-vacation between two weddings more than 2,000 miles apart, we spent a bit of time in the Florida National Parks – Everglades, Dry Tortugas, and Biscayne. Everglades In our travels, we were driving from Fort Myers, Florida southward to the Keys, passing through the Everglades National Park. The park seemed a natural stopping point in the roughly 240 mile trip. Of course, we’d seen pictures of the Everglades and the airboats that skim across the grassyRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"category-hiking.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-26-parks-and-weddings","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5607,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions\/5607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterdittman.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}