After the world shut down last year and I was restricted to just traveling within the United States, I decided to start a travel goal of visiting as many national parks as possible. One of the trips I considered taking last year to really start working toward this goal was a roadtrip through South Florida, where there are three national parks. I eventually decided against it because of the high Covid rates in the Miami area and went to Utah instead. But when my family started considering taking a family trip this summer, I already had a basic itinerary planned out for this South Florida national park roadtrip. We decided that’s what we wanted to do and then started officially planning it back in March right after I returned from the Northernmost Point. In addition to my immediate family, we also invited my friend Logan (who has become family) to come with us.
The weeks leading up to this trip were very shocking. First, exactly a month before leaving, the Champlain Towers South condo collapsed in Surfside, right next to North Miami Beach. This was a horrible event where everyone inside lost their lives unexpectedly in a split second. Following this tragedy, building inspections were being taken much more seriously in the Greater Miami area, and many questioned how safe it really was to go. Then soon after that, Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, affecting the large Haitian population within Miami. And soon after that, the Cuban protests began across Havana and Miami as well, calling for the US government’s involvement in the situation. We definitely couldn’t have planned a more interesting time for this trip to take place.
We drove from Pensacola to Miami, which was a very long drive (and I can now confirm that Buc-ee’s is better than Busy Bee, in case anyone was wondering). When we finally reached Miami, we found our Airbnb in Little Haiti, a neighborhood of mostly Haitian immigrants. The house was nice on the inside, but it wasn’t in the greatest area. Parts of Little Haiti are interesting, and I enjoyed the Caribbean vibe that I could sense in certain parts of it, but overall it didn’t feel safe. And that gut feeling was confirmed when I looked into Miami’s crime statistics and saw that it actually is one of the most dangerous areas of the city. The following morning, Christian and I went for a walk around the block and quickly decided it probably wasn’t the best idea.
But soon everyone else was ready, and we started our tour of Miami. Our first stop was a coffee shop in Little Haiti (Audrey loves coffee, so this was a priority most mornings). The place we stopped at was called Panther Coffee, and it was actually really nice! From there, we wanted to make a quick stop at the Surfside memorial located along the fence of the tennis courts that once belonged to the Champlain Towers South condo. This was hard to visit, and I can’t imagine being family of one of the victims. But I felt that it was an important stop to make while in the area. It was a great reminder to pray for those affected.
After this stop, we headed down into Miami Beach. Miami Beach is actually a separate city from Miami, despite its close proximity. And this area is extremely crowded! We came during the slow season for tourism, so I don’t even want to know what it looks like during the busy season. Traffic was awful, and parking was almost nonexistent. We stopped at many parking lots, hoping to find a spot, only to have to turn around and keep driving. We eventually found a place to park down at South Beach and decided to walk everywhere from there. South Beach (SoBe for short) is the most iconic part of Miami Beach. There’s a beautiful stretch of beach with colorful lifeguards shacks dotting the landscape and towering palm trees in every direction. Then along the streets of the city is the Art Deco District, the world’s largest collection of art deco architecture. This is a great area to walk around, but during the summer, it’s ridiculously hot!
We headed back down to the beach and rented bikes because it was too hot to walk. We rode them down to South Pointe Park Pier, which offers great views of both Miami and Miami Beach. Then from there, we grabbed our vehicle and headed to Bayside Marketplace, which is considered the most visited attraction in Miami. There was one store here called “It’s Sugar” that caught our attention (because they left their doors open forcing everyone that walks by to feel their A/C). It’s a candy store that lets you grab a bag and put whatever candy you want in it, and they charge you by the weight. Of course, we all ended up spending too much money there because everything looked good and the A/C felt great. And then after a quick break at the Airbnb, we headed into Little Havana, the most iconic neighborhood of Miami! I really loved Little Havana and the unique culture present there. We walked the main areas of Calle Ocho, watched locals play dominoes at Domino Park, and ate at a Cuban restaurant before heading back to the house to end our Miami day.
Right before reaching the house, I noticed my phone charger was missing and started to panic, thinking I left it somewhere. Knowing I was working on this blog as well as a video of the trip, losing my phone charger would be a huge problem. So I ran into a gas station to buy a new one. But once there, I noticed there was a man who was obviously high that was causing a scene inside the gas station and was yelling at the people inside. He then started getting in my personal space and yelling at me asking if I was a police officer there to arrest him. I quickly bought this junky $30 charger without looking at the price or grabbing a receipt and got out as fast as I could. Then as soon a we walked back in the house, I saw my charger sitting there waiting for me… 😑
The next day was our Everglades day, and we had to wake up early in order to make it to our scheduled airboat tour in time while also packing up everything we brought because we would not be returning to the house. But I was upset that I paid $30 for a charger I didn’t need (and the charger didn’t even work). So when we left the house, we made a “quick” stop at the gas station so I could try to return it, knowing it probably wouldn’t happen. Of course, they didn’t want to let me return it because I didn’t have a receipt. But then when I casually mentioned the crazy person in there the night before, their mood shifted, and they started to work with me. I explained what time I was there, and the cashier went into the back room to try to pull up a receipt for me. Now, remember, we’re in a hurry and have a reservation to get to which was about an hour away. This cashier lady took about 20 minutes to pull up my receipt! I was about to leave and just accept the loss when she finally came back out with the receipt and gave me a full refund. And I felt like I had accomplished something by getting my money back!
After that whole incident, we had to rush to the Everglades and still make a coffee stop somewhere along the way, but fortunately we made it just in time! We scheduled our airboat tour through Everglades Safari Park, one of only three airboat tour companies allowed to operate within national park borders. Soon after checking in, we were boarding our airboat for a ride through this iconic wetlands. As we were boarding the boat, we actually saw a large alligator crossing in front of all the other airboats, but it was too far away for me to get a picture of it. Our tour started, and our guide told us a lot of interesting facts about the Everglades. One thing most people don’t know is that the Everglades is actually a huge river, moving very slowly. Its most prominent feature is the sawgrass marsh, which is where it’s nickname comes from: River of Grass. But one thing I personally didn’t realize is that the Everglades is entirely made up of rain water. Summer is the wet season, and it rains almost every single day, allowing the water levels to be at their highest. Then during the winter, or dry season, the water levels are much lower.
Alligators are also much more active during the dry season due to the cooler weather. During the summer, it’s much more rare to see alligators in the Everglades, so we were hoping to get lucky and spot a few on this tour. We continued flying through this river of grass, and what all of us enjoyed the most was when our guide would angle the boat sideways and kinda slide across the surface of the water. We eventually did spot an alligator, and we were told that it was because we came first thing in the morning. Most visitors this time of year never even see one. Our guide then took us over to an area where a mother alligator is protecting her nest. She’s usually not visible, but we got lucky again and were able to see her! So during the worst time of year when most tourists don’t see a single alligator, we had now seen three.
Our tour ended, and we decided to walk along a few of the trails they have at this particular park. There were some alligators in captivity there that we were able to see before watching a little alligator show at the end. One thing we learned at this show is that all these legends about pythons and boas taking over the Everglades are mostly fake. There are some: but there are very few. When National Geographic did a story on these invasive snakes, they actually had to bring in their own snakes for the documentary because they couldn’t find any in the wild. From there, I wanted to visit another portion of the Everglades because at this point we had barely seen the edge of this massive national park. So we put in the address for the main entrance to the park and were shocked to see that it was over an hour away. We ended up going and decided to hike the Anhinga Trail, one of the most popular trails within the park.
Anhinga Trail was nice, but it would have been much better if we had seen alligators. Unfortunately, again, summer is not the time to see alligators. If you look up videos of Anhinga Trail during the popular times of year though, it’s usually crawling with alligators everywhere you look. There were a lot of these giant lubber grasshoppers the size of my hand along the trail, which were kinda interesting to see at first, but it was also mating season for them, so it got awkward fast. Then we also saw some gars and invasive fish species, but that was mostly it for the Anhinga Trail. Overall, I was pleased with the Everglades, and it became my 12th national park visited! One reason the Everglades is so iconic is because it’s home to many plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. This is a huge habitat for so many unique species, and it is actually only about 50% of its original size. The national park was put in place to protect it from further urbanization. And in addition, it’s also considered an important site for the entire world and was given the coveted status of UNESCO World Heritage Site. (This is now my 14th UNESCO Site).
We were exhausted after a couple days of exploring Miami and the Everglades, but it was time to move on to the next chapter of this trip: renting an RV to drive the Overseas Highway across the Florida Keys. I have a lot of interesting stories to tell from the Keys, so I’ll wait until next week to share those. Thanks for reading!
Tyler's Travels 