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Florida

Florida’s Natural Treasures: Hike, Bike & Kayak the Everglades

Program No. 24842RJ

Walk, bike and paddle through Everglades National Park, an unparalleled landscape whose diverse habitats are a must-see for any outdoor adventurer!

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6 days

5 nights

13 meals

5B 4L 4D

Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Orientation

Everglades City, FL

14 Mile Bike Loop, Everglades City Lecture

Everglades City, FL

Halfway Creek Paddle, Big Cypress National Preserve

Everglades City, FL

Bike Janes Scenic Drive; Nature walk and airboat ride

Everglades City, FL

Boat tour of the 10,000 Islands, Turner River Paddle

Everglades City, FL

Wrap-up Lecture, Big Cypress park ranger talk

Everglades City, FL

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At a Glance

Bike, hike and paddle Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S. This unique landscape is home to rare and endangered species found nowhere else on the planet. As a World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve and a Wetland of International Importance, the park is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists. From manatees to orchids, this is an opportunity for a rare glimpse into Florida’s mosaic of habitats and its residents. Learn from experts as you bike along quiet trails, kayak along mangrove forests and hike through some of the most beautiful landscapes Florida has to offer!

Activity Level

Outdoor: Spirited

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Bike Shark Valley, where you’ll likely encounter turtles and a wide variety of majestic birds.
Enjoy a private airboat ride to an animal sanctuary and explore the beauty of a cypress forest, home to alligators, birds and other native wildlife.
Paddle along Turner Creek through mangrove tunnels, cypress swamps and sawgrass environments.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Dillon Griffin

As a professional back country navigator, Dillon is blessed to have spent most of his career sharing areas such as The Everglades, in southern Florida, and the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. He credits his education and upbringing for instilling a strong passion for the great outdoors and exposing people to new environments. His programs reflect his understanding of the importance of preserving and protecting our public lands. While away from work, Dillon enjoys spending time with family, and in the outdoors.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Dillon Griffin View biography

Thomas Lockyear View biography

Thomas Lockyear has been a museum professional for nearly two decades, having served as curator of the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum and at Historic Pigeon Key, as well as executive director of the History of Diving Museum in Islamorada before accepting his current position as manager of Museum of the Everglades in Everglades City. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison (B.S., art), Thomas also holds a master’s degree from Florida Gulf Coast University (M.A., Ed.).

Suggested Reading List (8 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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Florida’s Natural Treasures: Hike, Bike & Kayak the Everglades

Program Number: 24842

Everglades Patrol

by Tom Shirley

As law enforcement officer and game manager for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Lt. Tom Shirley was the law in one of the last true frontiers in the nation--the Florida Everglades. In Everglades Patrol, Shirley shares the stories from his beat--an ecosystem larger than the state of Rhode Island. His vivid narrative includes dangerous tales of hunting down rogue gladesmen and gators and airboat chases through the wetlands in search of illegal hunters and moonshiners. During his thirty-year career (1955-1985), Shirley saw the Glades go from frontier wilderness to ""ruination"" at the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers. He watched as dikes cut off the water flow and controlled floods submerged islands that had supported man and animals for 3,000 years, killing much of the wildlife he was sworn to protect.

An Ecotourist's Guide to the Everglades and the Florida Keys

by Robert Silk with foreward by Clyde Butcher

Packed with adventure and a local's expert advice, this guide is essential reading for a fun-filled trip through the world's most famous wetland, the Everglades, and the spectacular marine environment of the 130-mile island chain formed by the Florida Keys. From the Ten Thousand Islands to Big Cypress, the Everglades, and the Florida Keys, Silk stops through alluring locales, such as a mysterious Coral Castle in the Redland/Homestead area, and the exceptional waterside campgrounds of Biscayne National Park. Silk's tour of the region even features an eerie Cold War-era missile base deep in Everglades National Park. Awe-inspiring boardwalks, paddles through mangroves, dives to imperiled reefs, a ride on the famous African Queen boat from the eponymous Bogart and Hepburn movie, and a sampling of the scenic and quirky attraction of Key West complete Silk's journey. Along the way, the reader will learn about local history and culture and discover some of the eclectic, locally owned restaurants, watering holes, and attractions that possess the charming Old Florida character.

Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism

by Stuart B. McIver

Death in the Everglades chronicles the demise of one of 20th-century Florida's most enduring folk heroes. The murder of Guy Bradley represents a milestone not only in the saga of the Everglades but also in the broader history of American environmentalism. This fascinating biography of his abbreviated but eventful life is emblematic of the struggle to tame the Florida frontier without destroying it. As Stuart McIver unfolds the story behind this famous but little-known crime, he also provides a window into Florida history during the creation of modern South Florida.

The Everglades: River of Grass

by Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a journalist and a pioneering environmentalist who helped defend the Florida Everglades. As a young woman, she was a writer and editor at the Miami Herald, which her father helped to establish in 1910. She became known for work in nature conservancy after her 1947 book Everglades: River of Grass was published, but it was many years later, in 1969 at age 79, when she founded the Friends of the Everglades. She was not only an advocate for the environment but also for women’s right to vote and for racial equality. In 1993, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Douglas died on May 14, 1998 at the age of 108.

Trouble in the Everglades

by Lee Gramling

When Tate Barkley meet up with a man who calls himself “Gator” he doesn’t know he’s the boss of a gang of “plumers” – men who kill thousands of birds in the everglades so their pues can adorn fashionable ladies’ hats. In fact, he doesn’t even know what a “plumer” is.But he learns quick enough, and more about the rough and dangerous bunch than he ever wanted to know. When he joins up with a rich Yankee detective who’s hunting a friend that’s gone missing in the vast and watery wilderness you can be sure there’s going to be trouble in the Everglades.

The Enduring Seminoles: From Alligator Wrestling to Casino Gaming

by Patsy West

Drawing on interviews with many Seminoles and extending to the Seminole Tribe’s purchase of the Hard Rock Café business in 2007, The Enduring Seminoles provides a colorful social and economic history of an unconquered people.

Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers

by Glen Simmons and Laura Odgen

Few people today can claim a living memory of Florida's frontier Everglades. Glen Simmons, who has hunted alligators, camped on hammock-covered islands, and poled his skiff through the mangrove swamps of the glades since the 1920s, is one who can. Together with Laura Ogden, he tells the story of backcountry life in the southern Everglades from his youth until the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947.

Nature Girl

by Carl Hiaasen

Passionate and willful Honey Santana is taking rude, gullible telemarketer Boyd Shreave and his less than enthusiastic mistress, Eugenie Fonda, into the mangroves of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands for a gentle lesson in humility. What Honey doesn’t know is that she’s being followed by her obsessed former employer, Piejack, and her still-smitten ex-husband, Perry, with their protective and wise-beyond-his-years twelve-year-old son, Fry. And when they all arrive on Dismal Key, they don’t know the island is occupied by Sammy Tigertail, a failed alligator wrestler trying like hell to be left alone despite the Florida State coed clinging to his side. South Florida has never been quite so hilarious as it is in this outrageous tale of one woman’s single-handed quest to eradicate greed and enforce civility in her corner of the Sunshine State.

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Florida’s Natural Treasures: Hike, Bike & Kayak the Everglades

Enroll with Confidence

Protecting the Environment

At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

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