Trip To Everglades National Park, Key Largo and Key West (November 27-30, 2003)

The trip starts in Tallahassee, FL. First, we drove to the area near Everglades National Park. (I-10 East, I-75 South to Naples FL, then highway 41 until Shark Valley entrance to the park). Bike tour is a very nice option there. It runs for 15 miles (2.5 hours) and leads to the observation tower (amazing view). It costs $5.25 an hour. If weather is not very nice, then there is a tram tour on the same trail. It costs $12. We left for Redroof Inn in Naples FL after taking the bike tour. In the very evening, we drove to the Naples city beach. It was very nice there. The downtown area is pretty crowded and it is fun in the dark hours.

Next day (friday, 9 am) we drove to the Everglades City FL to the ranger station and rented out canoes there. The rangers are very nice and provided all necessary information where we could canoe. The canoe rental is right in the same building. It costed us only $25 per day (this is probably the lowest price in town, but rangers are not allowed to give this kind of information). Our paddling exercise lasted about 3 hours. This is enough time to see what is around and get tired and hungry. We liked it a lot partially because of the very warm weather (80F). Then we headed to the air boat tour (highway 41). You can get one in the Indian reservation for $10. We decided not to take the boat tours in the Everglades city, because they are a bit expensive (1 hour tour cost $30 plus tax and tip per person). Overall, having 3 hour canoe and 1/2 air boat tours we are very satisfied. Please, do not think that one may enjoy air boat tour for more than 20 minutes. The engine is very loud! Keep that in mind to avoid headaches.

The same evening we left for Florida City FL in Travelodge hotel. We liked the hotel for the price/quality ratio. It costs about $45 per night but the room has coffee maker, microwave, fridge, iron, tv, etc. Continental breakfast was a very big plus, because it saved us some valuable time, not to mention few bucks. The same evening we visited Miami (highway 1). Unfortunately, there was some event and we barely found parking place and wasted 1 hour in traffic jam.

On Saturday, we moved to Key Largo (highway 1 South). It was unpredictably cold (68F) and we could not snorkel (snorkel trip to the reef costs less than $30 there) in the State park there. Instead, we took glass bottom boat tour to the reef. It is a very nice and interesting 2.5 hour trip. The price is only $21.50 including tax.

The next stop was on Key West. We took most of the food with us in a cooler. It saved both money and more importantly time. It was also nice to have a little picnic. However, on Saturday, we ate out on Key West. Then, we walked on the island and observed the sunset in only 90 miles to Cuba. We liked the time we spent on Key West. We left for hotel right after sunset, because it takes about 2.5 hours to get to Florida City.

On Sunday we visited Little Havana (cuban part of Miami) for about an hour and left home. Traffic was terrible on the way back. It was Thanksgiving time and again we wasted extra 1 hour because of the traffic. Overall, we liked the trip very much. Pictures can be found here.