In the morning we leave Islamorada where we spent the night (on our way back from Key East) in direction of the Everglades (1h40 of road), then direction Naples (1h40 of road again)
It’s time to go to the Everglades to discover this protected area of marshes that can only be found in Florida. You will have the choice between different companies to visit the marshes by Airboat and to see alligators which populate these marshes.
We opted for Everglades Alligator Farm. they offer turnkey packages to see alligators being fed, an airboat tour in the swamp, a small show with alligators and the possibility to hold baby alligators in the hands. it’s a comfortable package when you have children. then it’s a bit of a factory, but we didn’t have too many people during our visit which improved our experience.
We had found other providers like “Everglades Airboat Expeditions” or “Captain Jack’s Airboat Tours“, but we did not test them.
After our visit of the Everglades (about 2 hours), we drove back to Naples (about 1h40 drive from the Everglades). Naples is a city mainly populated by (very) rich Americans, which is not very interesting except for its magnificent white sand beach and its “pier” which extends towards the sea. We spent a beautiful afternoon there, and we took the opportunity to admire the sunset (Naples is on the west coast of Florida, so it’s ideal to watch the sunset on the sea). It was also impressive to admire all the villas along the beach of Naples, and to see how many millionaires are in this city of the United States (Naples is the second city in proportion of millionaires per inhabitant in the United States)
We slept at the Gulfcoast Inn Naples (http://www.gulfcoastinnnaples.com/), a relatively uninteresting motel with small and old rooms.
14-days family roadtrip in Florida
this article details one of our stages of a 14-day family roadtrip roadtrip in Florida