Tamiami Trail Adventure

There are two ways to get to the Everglades – on the one hand the whole beautiful and recommendable route from Homestead to Flamingo, which I have already reported on here, and on the other hand via the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41), which leads from Miami to Tampa and is located on the border to the Everglades National Park. When choosing our route from Miami to Naples, both Highway 75 and the Tamiami Trail were available. On Highway 75 you can get to your destination much faster, but since the nature experience was in the foreground for us, we chose the Tamiami Trail.

Shark Valley – Nationalpark am Tamiami Trail

After we were stuck in traffic jams for quite a long time on the first 60 kilometers due to construction sites, we reached the intermediate destination “Shark Valley” after passing numerous airboat tour operators (which are not allowed to be carried out within the national park). At the Shark Valley, a 25-kilometre-long round trip into the national park area begins, which can either be guided by a trolleybus or explored on your own with bicycles. Parking our car was a matter of patience at first, as the parking lot was already full and someone was only allowed in when a car drove out. At the bike rental, which is located at the Visitor Center, we finally lost our patience and decided to take a walk due to the long waiting times for a free bike. As a tip, I recommend arriving as early as possible in the morning and not in the early afternoon like we did. But there is also a lot to discover on foot and the alligators were at our feet, so to speak. For pedestrians, there are also two separate short trails, which lead away from the tarred roads through nature. A second stop was at the Oasis Visitor Center at the Big Cypress National Preserve, which is also adjacent to the Tamiami Trail. If you don’t see alligators in Shark Valley (which is hard to believe), you’ll definitely get your money’s worth at the Oasis Visitor Center.