The Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo trails provide a thorough introduction to the Everglades’ flora and fauna and are highly recommended to first-time visitors. Each is a half-mile round-trip and they start right next to each other, 3 miles from the park’s main entrance. Gumbo Limbo Trail (my pick for best walking trail in the Everglades) meanders through a gorgeous, shaded, junglelike hammock of gumbo-limbo trees, royal palms, ferns, orchids, air plants, and a general blanket of vegetation, though it doesn’t put you in close contact with much wildlife. Anhinga Trail is one of the most popular trails in the park because of its abundance of wildlife: there’s more water and wildlife in this area than in most parts of the Everglades, especially during dry season. Alligators, lizards, turtles, river otters, herons, egrets, and other animals abound. Arrive early to spot the widest selection of exotic birds, such as the anhinga bird, the trail’s namesake, a large black fishing bird so accustomed to humans that many of them build their nests in plain view. Take your time: at least an hour is recommended for each trail. If you treat the trails and modern boardwalk as pathways to get through quickly, rather than destinations to savor, you’ll miss out. Both are wheelchair accessible.
To get closer to nature, a few hours in a canoe along any of the aforementioned trails allows paddlers the chance to sense the park’s fluid motion and to become a part of the ecosphere. Visitors who choose this option end up feeling more like explorers than observers.
No matter which option you choose, I strongly recommend staying for the 45-minute 7pm program, held Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays January through March 31 at the Long Pine Key Amphitheater. This ranger-led talk and slide show will give you a detailed and fascinating look at park’s history, natural resources, wildlife, and threats to its survival.
A non-nature oriented highlight of the park is the Nike Hercules Missile Base HM-69 ★, completed in 1965, not long after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The base was decommissioned in 1979, and looks almost exactly like it did then (it wasn’t open to the public until 2009). From December to March 31, free ranger-led tours take visitors on a 90-minute driving and walking tour of the missile assembly building, three barns where 12 missiles were stored, the guardhouse and guard dog kennel, and the underground control room. Tours depart from the Daniel Beard Center, 40001 State Road 9336 in Homestead. The tour is free but the park admission still applies. The site is open most days between early December and late March, but program schedules fluctuate due to staffing capability. View the online park calendar for info on programming.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.
