Light-years away from theme parks and busy beaches, and yet only a few hours south of Miami by car.
Florida Everglades
Florida's Everglades National Park is a national treasure: a World Heritage Site, and International Biosphere Reserve. In the words of the Everglades' most eloquent defender:
"... The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass."
"There are no other Everglades in the world."
The Florida Everglades' River of Grass is sawgrass, whose pointed blades rise up from what might seem to be swamp but is actually a huge slow-moving shallow river. Don't expect spectacular scenery, as you drive in the Park: most of the landscape is a flat expanse of sawgrass, which is why it's so important to walk the wonderful trails at the visitors' centers-- stretch your legs, feel the breeze and silence, see birds and other wildlife. (See Visiting the Florida Everglades- tips .)
Florida Everglades: Uniqueness
As National Parks notes, the Everglades is the largest sub-tropical wilderness in the continental United States. The Park has lakes, "hammocks" (where trees rise above the marsh), sloughs, and mangrove forests.
It's also the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles live side by side.
" Nothing anywhere else is like them: their vast glittering openness, wider than the enormous visible round of the horizon, the racing free saltness and sweetness of their massive winds, under the dazzling blue heights of space."
--Marjory Stoneman Douglas[/link]
Florida Everglades: under threat
Given the uniqueness and fame of the Everglades, who would guess that the park is under threat?
Population increases in the region, water quality, and invasion of non-native species are all culprits. Thousands of people move to Florida yearly, and millions visit its tourist attractions: all these people use freshwater, draining underwater aquifers-- which are already thirsty because acres of asphalt block rainwater from seeping underground. Also, when freshwater supplies diminish, saltwater can intrude inland; wetlands such as the Everglades need a balance between salt water and fresh.
Meanwhile, a more well-organized enemy of the Everglades is the sugar industry, which sometimes seems to be at loggerheads with the Park's survival.
Sad to say, the future of the Florida Everglades is uncertain, and the protected area in the Park is only a fraction of what's left of a once-vast ecosystem... Which is perhaps all the more reason to visit soon with your family.
"They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known."
--Marjory Stoneman Douglas
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Florida Everglades: visitor's tips - where to stay, best time to visit...
