Seeking suggestions for visiting Everglades

[kortopates]

Hi,

The thread on tips for going to KEYW inspired me to post this. Looks like there are lots of you that could give us some good suggestions on how to visit the Everglades.

We're heading to KEYW ourselves from southern California and expect to be in Southern FL right after the new year and thought we would make a stop to visit the Everglades. We're not sure if we'll have one overnight to spend there or two nights because we really have a firm date we want to be at KEYW by. We're leaving early to ensure our KEYW date and if all goes well we'll have some extra time to sight see at both the Everglades and Key West,  So given the time constraints, would you recommend coming into Homestead X51 and we assume rent a car there to travel in or do you think it would be just as good coming in from KIMM or MKY or even X01. X01 is very doable if the weather but I assume we'll need a car from either the Gulf Coast side or Homestead and that likely limits us. The Gulf side is more appealing since its on the coast, but we're assuming we'll get a better Everglades experience from Homestead? Our interest are scenic tour, seeing wildlife, boat tour, and getting some exercise hiking etc. 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[yvesg]

Paul,

We went to Homestead last christmas holiday and did visit the Everglades.

There are two FBOs in Homestead: Roberts South and Executive Jet. We went to Executive Jet last year and if we would go again we would try the other due to the low level of service we got from Ex Jet. We got a car rental from Ex Jet, that part was OK. Overall, we do not recommend using the Ex Jet FBO.

I am planning to go in this area this year again and it is too bad our dates don't match yours... would have been nice to meet you.

Planned arrival in Florida is Dec 26th or 27th...returning to Canada on Dec 30th.

Yves

[kortopates]

Thanks for the suggestions Yves.

I don't expect we'll get there till Dec 31st at the earliest and probably a little later. Too bad we'll miss each other  and thanks it would have been nice to meet you too.,

We'll stick with Homestead for now and plan to check out the Roberts South FBO.

[LuisO]

Hello, I'm new to the forum but not new to South Florida. I know I'm late for this thread but I wonder what did you end up doing. Neither Homestead nor Everglades City are good places to overnight. The latter is good for a day visit though. If I had gotten here earlier, I would've recommended that you overnight in Naples (KAPF).

[kortopates]

 

On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 4:05 PM, LuisO said:

Hello, I'm new to the forum but not new to South Florida. I know I'm late for this thread but I wonder what did you end up doing. Neither Homestead nor Everglades City are good places to overnight. The latter is good for a day visit though. If I had gotten here earlier, I would've recommended that you overnight in Naples (KAPF).

Thanks, we did spend two nights in Homestead. Got there late in the day, rented a car and drove into the park for the day to the Flamingo Visitor center. We did boat tour in the swamps and hiked a couple of the trails including the highly recommended Anhinga Trail. I don't doubt Naples would have offered more at night but for access to the everglades we weren't sure where to go.

[flyboy0681]

31 minutes ago, kortopates said:

 

 We did boat tour in the swamps and hiked a couple of the trails including the highly recommended Anhinga Trail. 

Truth be told, the Everglades is a river, not a swamp. The name "Everglades" is a native Indian word for "River of grass" and the water actually flows.