Grassrivers is the Everglades: the trailer’s airboat skimming sawgrass, the alligators in every ditch, the flat wet horizon that goes on forever. It is also the easiest region to see for real, because it starts twenty minutes past the last Miami suburb. This day trip is a loop of about 200 miles: out along the Tamiami Trail, the old two-lane road across the bottom of the state, and back on Alligator Alley, the interstate. It is for anyone with a rental car and a spare day on a Vice City trip, and it is the day most people remember longest.
Go between December and April. That is the dry season, when the water level drops and the wildlife crowds into the remaining pools and canals, so you see alligators by the dozen instead of by the one. The mosquitoes are bearable and the mornings are cool. In summer the swamp is flooded, buggy and hot, and afternoon thunderstorms arrive on schedule; the airboats still run, but the animals are spread thin. Whatever the season, start early. Everything here is better before 10am.
Day 1
Morning. Leave Miami by 7:30 and head west on US-41, the Tamiami Trail. Within 45 minutes of downtown the houses stop and the sawgrass starts. The airboat ride comes first, while the air is cool and the gators are basking on the banks. The operators cluster along the highway near the park’s Shark Valley entrance; rides run 30 to 60 minutes and $30-60 per person, and the small, longer-established outfits are generally the better ones. Book the first departure and you will have the sawgrass mostly to yourself.
Then drive a few minutes west to gator country, the Shark Valley entrance of Everglades National Park. Entry is charged per vehicle and the pass is good for a week. There is a paved 15-mile loop with an observation tower at the far end; do it on the two-hour guided tram (book ahead in season) or rent a bike and ride it yourself. Either way, the canal beside the first few miles is where the alligators are, sunning on the bank an arm’s length from the path. They ignore you. Give them room anyway and keep small children close. Give this stop three hours.
Afternoon. Keep going west on 41. The scenery changes from open sawgrass to cypress domes and the Loop Road as you enter Big Cypress National Preserve. The Oasis Visitor Center has a boardwalk over a canal that is reliably full of alligators, and the Kirby Storter boardwalk a little further on walks you into a cypress strand under Spanish moss. If you have time and a car you are allowed to take on gravel, the Loop Road is a 24-mile unpaved detour through the swamp; allow two hours and check your rental agreement first.
Ten minutes on is the smallest post office, a shed the size of a garden hut that is the real, working Ochopee post office. Buy a postcard, mail it from the counter and it goes out with the Ochopee postmark. It is a five-minute stop and a photo everyone takes.
Turn south on SR-29 for the stone-crab fishing town. Everglades City calls itself the stone crab capital of the world, and in season (mid-October to early May) the crab houses along the river serve claws that came off the boats that morning. Late lunch here. Then cross the causeway to Chokoloskee and the old Smallwood Store, a 1906 trading post on stilts that is now a small museum. The park’s Gulf Coast visitor center in Everglades City runs boat tours into the Ten Thousand Islands if you have the time; the sunset from the water there is the other great shot of the day.
Evening. Head north on SR-29 to I-75 and turn east onto the straight road across the swamp, Alligator Alley. It is around 80 miles of ruler-straight interstate with a canal on each side, a toll, and almost nothing in the way of services, so fill the tank in Everglades City. If there is daylight left, the canals beside the road are busy with wading birds and the occasional gator. The road ends abruptly at Weston, where golf-course suburbs sit hard against the levee. That edge, where the backyard pools meet the swamp, is the world of the trailer’s gator in the backyard pool; it happens here for real, and the local wildlife trappers are busy in spring. Do not go looking in anyone’s garden. From Weston it is 45 minutes back to Miami, an hour to the beach.
Practical notes
Where to base yourself. Miami, anywhere near the western side (Brickell, Coral Gables, Doral) shaves the morning drive. If you are staying on Miami Beach add 30 minutes each way. There is nothing to be gained by staying in the Everglades themselves for a single day, and very little to stay in.
Getting around. A car, full stop. There is no transit to any of this. A basic rental works for everything except the Loop Road. Fill up before you leave Miami; fuel stops are far apart west of the Shark Valley entrance.
What it costs. Airboat $30-60 per person. National park entry under $40 per vehicle. The Shark Valley tram is around $30 a head and bike rental $20-30. Lunch $20-35, more if you go all in on stone crab. Alligator Alley toll a few dollars each way. Most people land at $100-200 per person for the day, less with a full car.
The thing people get wrong. They expect the airboat to be the wildlife event. It is a ride; loud, fast and fun, and the operators know where a gator or two lives, but the reliable alligators are on the Shark Valley canal bank, sitting still while you cycle past. Do the airboat for the trailer, do Shark Valley for the animals, and wear real sunscreen; there is no shade out there.