A fun, four minute read from our friends at ShareAmerica.

Everglades National Park, a vast landscape of flooded grasslands in southern Florida, is a little more than an hour’s drive by car from Miami. But it’s a completely different world.

Visitors to the rugged wilderness, often referred to as a “river of grass,” will find an environment like few others. It teems with birds, fish, reptiles and rare mammals.

Established in 1947, Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness  in North America, comprising 1.5 million acres (6,070 square kilometers). It averages about 1 million visitors a year.

Endangered and Threatened Species At Home Here

The park’s cypress swamps, sawgrass marshes and mangrove forests provide rich habitat for endangered or threatened species such as alligators, American crocodiles, the Florida panther and the West Indian manatee. The park, which is part of a much larger wetlands region, was also established to protect important habitats for wading birds, such as flamingos.

The park also includes the waters of Florida Bay, popular with fishing enthusiasts for the variety and size of game fish like tarpon.

Fishing in Florida Bay. Photo by SFWMD.

The most popular time to visit is during the dry season from November through April when milder temperatures attract wading birds and inhibit mosquitoes and wildlife is abundant.