…an Everglades Safari!

The one thing I was constantly reminded about moving to Florida was to and I quote “watch out for them gators,” and while we haven’t had any encounters close to home (yay!) I was excited to visit the Everglades for the opportunity to see some!

There are tons of tours, all of which utilize an airboat to take you out and all of which advertise themselves as the #1 Everglades attraction. In my opinion, you really have to research and read some reviews to decide which one to do.  That’s what we did and then found a pretty good Groupon deal too! We chose to do the “Everglades Safari Tour” and I’m so happy we did. We had Joey’s mom visiting and the three of us had a ball out in the Everglades! The tour is about 40 min out on the water and then they have a boardwalk area where you can walk through on your own and see some sun bathing gators, you can even hold a baby alligator for a picture (after you pay $3 to do so). It’s worth a visit and so exciting to be able to see these animals in their natural habitat. Some fun facts about the Everglades:

• It’s the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States.
• It is the only place in THE WORLD where the American alligator and American crocodile coexist in the wild.
• It is home to 73 threatened or endangered species- including the Florida Panther and West India manatee.
• Over 7 million Floridians rely on the Everglades for drinking water.
• It’s nickname is the”River of Grass”and is characterized as a river, although most visitors mistake it as a swamp or marsh.

While it was intimidating being out in the open surrounded by these big reptiles, we learned so much about them and that they often get a bad rap. They are such lazy animals. They really do just sit around basking in the sun all day. When they swim, they swim at such a leisurely pace, of course when they’re searching for food that pace speeds up but they aren’t out in the water attacking everything they see, as I often pictured them doing.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading a bit about our experience!

xoxo,

Amanda