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The Everglades

The Everglades Travel Guide

Miami is the only city in the country that has two national parks and a national preserve in its backyard. Everglades National Park, created in 1947, was meant to preserve the slow-moving River of Grass—a freshwater river 50 mi wide but only 6 inches deep, flowing from Lake Okeechobee through marshy grassland into Florida Bay. Along Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41), marshes of saw grass extend as far as the eye can see, interspersed only with hammocks or tree islands of bald cypress and mahogany, while overhead southern bald eagles make circles in the sky. An assembly of plants and flowers, including ferns, orchids, and bromeliads, shares the brackish waters with river otters, turtles, alligators, and occasionally that gentle giant, the Florida manatee. Not so gentle, though, is the saw grass. Deceptively graceful, these tall, willowy sedges have small, sharp teeth on the edges of their leaves. More »

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Biscayne National Park
Everglades National Park

Photo: David N. Madden/Shutterstock

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