Our final day in the Everglades we planned to go all the way out to Flamingo Visitor Center. This is all the way at the southern tip of Florida and the Everglades. The road out there is out and back so you can stop at a few things on the way out, a few things on the way back in. We started with the Anhinga Trail, a 0.8 mile boardwalk through a swamp with plenty of birds and alligators to look at.

We had breakfast at a cafe in Homestead called Island Cafe. For both convenience and comfort of easy diner food, I’d recommend this spot. First stop after breakfast was the Big Cypress Oasis. This is also the southern terminus of the Florida Trail. More importantly there are a TON of gators here. Along the road is a long river with a boardwalk and the gators and other wildlife are plentiful. The visitor center here was also really informative.

When my mom suggested a trip to the Everglades, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I started researching and came up pretty barren on things to do. A big emphasis is on airboat tours, bicycle tours and kayaking. For our first day, we had to drive from near Tampa where we were for Christmas festivities, down to Everglades City. This is for the Gulf Coast side of the Everglades, and for us the first of four possible entrances to the park.

My parents have a place in Dunedin which is a town about forty minutes from Tampa. We decided to go there to meet them for Christmas this year and had a wonderful Christmas with our typical traditions and plenty of wine to go around! While here, we did two things: We took my parents’ bicycles out for a ride through the local Hammock Park. One big difference between here and San Francisco or Oakland is that you can just bicycle through town and through a park with no hills whatsoever!