Our 6th National Park Adventure : Everglades and Big Cypress
By Paul Strubell 12/9/25
The tradition continues. As many of you know, my son and I have made it a tradition to visit a National Park for his birthday each Fall. This year, for his 6th birthday, we choose Everglades National Park in Southern Florida. We also made time to swing by Biscayne Bay National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve.
First, a little back story for those who may not know. When my son was about to turn one. I took him (in our Airstream called Bubs) to Badlands National Park for a few days of hiking and relaxing in nature. While we were there, I realized this was a dream come true moment for me. I was on my first father / son trip and we were travelling in our Airstream to a National Park. It was then that the tradition was born. My son and I have visited a National Park for his birthday every year since. How many kids can say that?
You can read about the other trips here.
Why did we choose Everglades National Park this year?
As a six year old, we are still walking that fine line of visiting parks that satisfy his interests with how much hiking he can reasonably do. Everglades offers relatively easy access to wildlife highlights (gators, panthers, and manatee), airboat rides, and relatively easy hiking trails. So I thought it was a great time to check this one off our list. Once we started researching things to do there, we also quickly added a few hikes in the Big Cypress National Preserve to our schedule as well.
For us these trips are as much about learning about these places together and generating excitement through planning , as they are about the actual vacation experiences. For a 6 year old boy, the promise of seeing alligators in the wild, taking airboat rides, and swimming on the Atlantic ocean is an exciting proposition and kept him engaged for months ahead of time.
One of the biggest differences in this trip from our past trips was that this was the first time we flew to a park. We found a direct flight from Cedar Rapids to Punta Gordo, Florida which helped to keep the costs relatively low and the travel relatively easy. We secured our flights, rented a car, and booked a few nights in hotels all for less than $850. 5 days and 4 nights.
Our first night in Florida was spent at a hotel in Fort Meyers. Following a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we made a quick stop at an indigenous grocery store to grab some water, sun screen, and bug spray. Cole was adamant we buy some apples there too. So we picked up a few of those and set out across Alligator Alley. We stopped at a trailhead for The Florida Trail into the Big Cypress National Preserve. We entered the preserve through large gates in a chain linked fence designed to keep endangered Florida Panthers and other large wildlife off the highway and hiked along a series of rustic roads and trails for about 6 miles out and back. The temps were in the low 90’s. Which caused a bit of a rough transition for our Hi-Test Midwestern blood. We saw a few native birds and common anoles but none of the large fauna we hoped to encounter. The heat was even too much for them to want to be on the move.
After completing the hike, we stopped off for a roadside lunch of locally caught fried fish sandwiches. They weren’t very good, but we did see our first wild alligator in a small puddle near the highway overpass.
From there we continued East to my aunts home in Boynton Beach on the Atlantic side. We took a swim at her pool and walked the neighborhood looking for iguanas and birds. She prepared a fantastic dinner for us that night. In the morning we made our way to the beach for an early morning swim and walked the shore looking for shells and sea glass. We said our good byes to Aunt Cheryl and pressed south to Del Ray Beach to grab a quick smoothie and pastry with a friend from back home and her new baby before making our drive South through Biscayne Bay National Park and ultimately down to Homestead, Florida. I had booked us a hotel just a few minutes away from the East entrance to Everglades National Park.
After a quick check in at the hotel, we made the decision to run down to an Everglades classic, the longstanding fruit stand, Robert is Here. I’ve been visiting this place for over 35 years and have deep connections to my grandparents and the Robert is Here milkshakes and smoothies. It was delightful to bring Cole here and introduce him to something I have done many times on my own vacations as a child.
From here we went to another spot I’ve been visiting for a long time, the Everglades Alligator Farm. They offer rescued animals, alligators shows and the opportunity to get out on an airboat ride. Cole loved this experience and got to hold a baby alligator here. We grabbed a less than memorable dinner at Cracker Barrel and took a very cold dip in the outdoor pool, before tucking in for the night.
The next morning we were up with the sun. We hit a grocery store near our hotel where we loaded up on snacks and premade sandwiches before making our way to Everglades National Park. We stopped at the Ernest F. Coe Ranger Station and walked the exhibits and boardwalks. Sadly we were there during the government shutdown and that limited our access to the Ranger Programs and educational talks. Still we made the most of our time there. As we drove the parks main southern road towards Flamingo and the Guy Bradley Visitors Center, we stopped at many of the trailheads and walked them to completion. We had lunch near the visitor center and walked the surrounding area. We were lucky enough to see several osprey fishing, an American crocodile and a half dozen manatee in the wild. Seeing them all up close was awesome for Cole and made the entire trip very memorable for us.
After spending about 2 hours around Flamingo we made our way back towards Homestead. This time walking the rest of the trails we had passed up on the way in. Successfully completing every boardwalk and trail along the road. We made a second run back to Robert is Here for another smoothie before heading back into the Park for sunset. Walking our favorite trail (Mahogany) a second time as the sun disappeared into the grassy water.
As darkness fell on the Park, Cole was hooting back and forth with an owl as we jumped in the car at Everglades for the last time. We grabbed a nice meal at Olive Garden and turned in for the night.
On our last day in Florida, we made out way back towards the airport in Punta Gorda via the southern road through Big Cypress. Specifically to hike one last trail. We had received a tip from an Instagram friend about the Gator Hook Trail being a great place to see invasive pythons in the wild. Sadly, it was a very cold day and we did not see anything, but we did have a memorable barefoot hike through Big Cypress.
From there we went back to the airport and saw countless very large alligators along the canal of HWY 40. A terrific end to our 6th National Park birthday adventure.
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