A Wilder Way to Experience Florida’s Paradise Coast: Big Cypress National Preserve

Big Cypress National Preserve — nearly all of its 729,000 acres contained within Florida’s Paradise Coast — is part of the larger Everglades ecosystem. A natural marvel, Big Cypress is a mosaic of different habitats, each with its own characteristics. Based on elevation, they range from dry all year round (hardwood hammocks) to fresh water that can change from ankle deep to more than waist high within 20 feet (cypress swamps).

These distinct ecosystems are not confined to specific geographical areas. 
“It doesn’t go from high (elevation) in the north to low in the south,” says Lisa Andrews, who’s worked for the National Park Service at Big Cypress for 30 years. “It’s blotches of different habitats across most of the Preserve. It’s like a patchwork quilt.”

We asked Lisa to share her thoughts on how to make the best of a visit to Big Cypress.

A Starting Point

An ideal place to begin is at the Nathaniel P. Reed Visitor Center on U.S. 41, aka Tamiami Trail, the main road that runs through the Everglades. It’s about a 50-minute drive from downtown Naples to the visitor center. The facility features indoor and outdoor exhibits related to the natural and cultural history of Big Cypress. You can also view a 17-minute introductory film, look at maps and pick up literature.

Stroll the Boardwalk

Kirby Storter Roadside Park, also located right on Tamiami Trail, has shaded picnic areas and an easygoing half-mile boardwalk that takes you through a sawgrass prairie and a cypress swamp. “It’s beautiful, very lush and green and swamp-like,” says Lisa, who is Big Cypress’s outreach and education coordinator. “You’ll see a lot of birds.” Look closely and you might spot a group of gators, especially at the turnaround.

Scenic Drives

There are two in Big Cypress, both gravel roads:

Turner River Road juts north from Tamiami Trail, then transitions into Wagonwheel and Birdon Road. Altogether, it’s a 17-mile trek through open wet prairies. “It’s a county road, so it stays in pretty good shape, Lisa says. “A canal runs right along the road, so it’s a great place to see and photograph alligators and wading birds.”

Loop Road, a little farther east, runs south and east for 27 miles. “It’s rougher, but it’s a good place to view wildlife.” she says. You’ll see cypress and pine forests, hardwood hammocks, and other ecosystems.

Feel free to park your car and take short hikes into the wetlands for an up-close perspective. “You don’t have to have a trail,” Lisa says. “You can hike anywhere in Big Cypress, but I suggest you not go alone and don’t go too far.”

Guided Eco-Tours

“These are for people who want to get their feet wet and really experience what the place is all about,” Lisa says.

From about Thanksgiving to April — which most people consider the best part of the year to visit Big Cypress — park rangers lead guided tours through various trails and habitats. “This way, people can see that, while we often call Big Cypress a swamp, it’s not scary,” Lisa says. “It’s crystal-clear [fresh] water, not smelly with dark water and mud, with slithering things and biting things.”

The ranger-guided programs include wet walks, hikes, canoe trips, bike trips, and other activities. They’re free, and there’s a whole list to choose from. Check out this Big Cypress webpage or call the visitor center for information on the tours. Some of them require you to call and make reservations: (239) 695-4758.  

In addition to the free ranger tours, a few licensed operators take people on immersive eco-tours. Here are a handful of examples:

Big Cypress Swamp Tours offers rides on crude swamp buggies. Captain Shannon, a seventh generation “gladesman,” drives the funky looking vehicle through an array of habitats and narrates the tour with folksy charm. Guests sit on a covered second deck for terrific views.

Behind Clyde Butcher’s Big Cypress Gallery, you can go on a Guided Swamp Walk Eco-Tour, where you wear old sneakers, grab a walking stick and follow your guide through a wondrous series of ecosystems, at times wading through water that can rise above your waist (depending on the season). Silence is encouraged, so you can hear, see, and feel the nature. “You can see your tennis shoes in three or four feet of water, that’s how clear it is,” Lisa says.

At Everglades Adventure Tours, gladesman Jack Shealy will take you into Big Cypress on a pole boat, a wooden skiff similar to the crafts used by natives many centuries ago. You’ll slink through mangrove tunnels and look out over vast sawgrass prairies, while Jack steers the boat with a long wooden pole and tells you all you need to know about Big Cypress. Don’t be surprised if a gator glides by the boat within arm’s reach. It will ignore you.

Things to Look For

Plant Life

While Lisa acknowledges that most people who visit Big Cypress want to see animals — especially the alligators — she urges people to more closely examine the plant life. “The plants hold still,” she quips. “They’re easier to photograph.”

One of the most elusive and mystical plants in Big Cypress is the ghost orchid. Lisa says that park personnel don’t tell visitors where ghost orchids are, or show them on tours. “Unfortunately, poachers come out here and take them,” she says. Picking any flower or plant in Big Cypress is illegal, she adds. So is feeding the animals.

Lisa says there are 36 species of orchid in Big Cypress. The most common types include clamshell orchids, butterfly orchids, onion orchids, and jingle bell orchids, “which are the smallest ones we have in Florida,” Lisa says. “They’re this tiny little squiggle that looks like a thread on a tree.”

Big Cypress is also home to Florida’s largest orchid, the cowhorn, whose blooms are vibrant yellow or orange.

The Preserve is rife with bromeliads, whose flowers bloom in different seasons. Moss, ferns, pond apples, strangler figs, buttonbush, wax myrtle, cabbage palms and gumbo limbo are among the park’s myriad types of plant life.

And don’t look past the Preserve’s namesake plant, the cypress tree. They can be spindly, they can be majestic. They can be draped with moss and other native plant life. And their root systems often fan out above the water.

Animal Life

The best time to see animals is during the winter season. Besides alligators, there are 50 species of reptiles in the Preserve. Other critters that call Big Cypress home are racoons, boars, bobcats and black bears, which can weigh up to 400 pounds.

Lisa is a fan of the fox squirrel. About double the size of the common gray squirrel, they have huge bushy tails and often orange tummies.  

Don’t count on seeing a Florida panther, though. They’re solitary animals, wary of humans. Just the sighting of paw prints sends tingles through the spines of enthusiasts. But you just might view a manatee.

You will see lots and lots of birds – Big Cypress known as a birding mecca. Sixteen species of long-legged wading birds are known to live in the Preserve. A variety of beguiling creatures launch from the trees: red-shouldered hawks, snail kites, anhingas, purple martins, palm warblers and many more.

A Half-Centennial Celebration

Big Cypress  is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024. In 1974, President Richard Nixon’s administration named it the country’s first National Preserve.

Park management has several celebrations planned, the biggest of which is the Swamp Heritage Festival on December 7. Held at the Visitor Center, the free event will feature music, speakers, exhibitors, demonstrations, food vendors and an array of other activities. Check the website for other half-centennial events.

All told, Big Cypress National Preserve is a treasure. Visitors to Florida’s Paradise Coast really should plan a day trip here. “When I was a kid we had a house in Old Naples,” Lisa says. “And if it was a bad beach day, my mom would bring us out here and we’d walk through the swamp and go birding, look for orchids and things like that.

“So I think visiting Big Cypress is a great thing to do if it’s not a good beach day, or if you’ve had enough beach days … or,” she adds jokingly, “if you’ve spent all your money shopping on Fifth Avenue.”