FLORIDA'S BISCAYNE BAY, EVERGLADE AND DRY TORTUGAS NATIONAL PARKS
To add sun, sand, and sea to your National Parks adventure, head for southern Florida, which encompasses three National Parks. Biscayne Bay National Park, south of Miami, is made up of the southern expanse of Biscayne Bay and the northern Florida Keys and is 95 per cent water. It also incorporates mangrove-fringed shorelines, islands and coral reefs and can be visited by glass-bottomed boat.
The Everglades National Park, covering more than 2,400 square miles of swamps, prairies, sawgrass marshes and mangrove forests, is found along Interstate 75. It stretches west from Fort Lauderdale on the Atlantic Ocean coast to Naples on the Gulf of Mexico and then continues north through Fort Myers. Rt 41, known as the Tamiami Trail, stretches westward from Miami and continues onwards to the same Gulf Coast destinations.
The best eastern access point is near Homestead on Route 1, which then links up Homestead with a 38-mile road running south to Flamingo on the Florida Bay. From there, you can take boat tours into the wilderness, part of which is sometimes referred to as ‘The River of Grass'. Along the way expect to see cruising alligators, turtles and such flamboyant birds as Roseate Spoonbills.
There's accommodation in traditional Seminole chickee huts and cabins in the Big Cypress National Preserve to the west of the national park and, of course, in both the east and west coast gateway cities.
Consisting of seven islands in the Florida Straits leading into the Gulf of Mexico, the Dry Tortugas National Park can only be reached by ferry, private boats or chartered sea plane from Key West, at the tip of the long convoy of bridge-connected islands known as the Florida Keys.
Its main Garden Key is dominated by Fort Jefferson, the Western Hemisphere's largest brick sculpture, which was built in the 1840s to protect Florida's coastal area and was a prison during and after the American Civil War. Dr Samuel Mudd was incarcerated there for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.
Activities include surf fishing, snorkelling, scuba diving, picnicking and limited camping. However, there's a great range of accommodation and numerous other attractions in lively Key West.
DRY TORTUGAS NATIONAL PARK CAN ONLY BE REACHED BY FERRY, PRIVATE BOATS OR CHARTERED SEA PLANE FROM KEY WEST, AT THE TIP OF THE LONG CONVOY OF BRIDGE-CONNECTED ISLANDS KNOWN AS THE FLORIDA KEYS.