kayaking the Everglades

It’s the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles live side by side with people with kayaks.There’s nothing like it anywhere else—and it might not be here much longer, given the encroaching development in southern Florida. Bring the kids here now, to dip a
paddle into this River of Grass while it still flows.

THE EVERGLADES IS A BIZARRE ECOSYSTEM, when you think about it: a drawling grassy river
that’s rarely more than knee-deep, but spreads some 40 miles wide, harboring an
exotic population of manatees, hawksbill turtles, water moccasins, coral snakes,
panthers, armadillos, muskrats, opossums,river otters, herons, egrets, the roseate
spoonbill, and the big black anhinga bird.

While you can stick to dry land—driving or biking on the paved park roads, or walking short nature trails through junglelike
patches of forest—the whole point of this place is that it isn’t dry land. What you really want is to feel the sway and lap
of the park’s waters, the lazy grace of its fluid meander through mangroves and cypresses and sawgrass prairies. Rent
canoes at the Gulf Coast visitor center in Everglades City or the Flamingo
Lodge by the Flamingo visitor center at the southern tip of the park. In a canoe you’ll be incredibly close to the water
level, casually coexisting with gators and birds as if you’re part of their natural environment.

That just won’t happen on those powered airboats that offer Everglades tours just outside park
boundaries. (They aren’t allowed in the park proper.)Everglades National Park’s longest “trails” are designed for canoe travel,
and many are marked as clearly as walking trails. From the Gulf Coast, you can canoe 2 miles across Chokoloskee Bay to a
mangrove island, or follow the Turner River 8 miles from freshwater cypress forest into saltwater mangrove swamp. From
Flamingo, the Noble Hammock Canoe Trail is an easy 2-mile loop; the Hell’s Bay Canoe Trail is 3 to 6 miles, depending on
how far you venture