I (Sandra) never thought I’d fall in love with a swamp. But that’s what happened when I was researching the second edition of 50 Hikes in South Florida. I spent a month living in Fort Myers, getting my feet wet several times a week on hikes in and around the Big Cypress Swamp. When the time came for the book debut, Clyde and Niki Butcher invited me to sign books at their annual Labor Day Muck-A-Bout. I took my first “total immersion” swamp walk with their volunteer crew, where the water was so deep I had to swim a short ways, and I was hooked. Each year thereafter I have returned to introduce others to the amazing experience of walking through a shallow, sluggish river of crystal-clear raindrops beneath a tightly knit canopy of cypresses decorated with colorful bromeliads and fragrant orchids. For seven years, I’ve considered this wilderness a second home, a place to draw strength from the natural beauty of one of the country’s most unique national parks and the many resident artists who call it home.
TAKING A SWAMP WALK IN BIG CYPRESS NATIONAL PRESERVE
Sandra Friend
Such is the magic of South Florida. It has captured the imagination of explorers since the Spanish set foot on these shores in the 1500s in search of gold. The farther south you go in Florida, the clearer and bluer the oceans become. South Florida is on the tropical fringe, with its native flora originating in the Caribbean and growing as far north as West Palm Beach and Pine Island. It is a place where rare indigenous species roam, including the elusive Florida panther and the reclusive American crocodile. The central portion of Florida’s peninsula is graced with quiet rural towns, cattle ranches, and citrus groves until you reach the mighty swamps of South Florida, the Everglades, and Big Cypress.
South Florida is also an amalgam of cultures. The Seminoles, descendents of Creeks who migrated into Florida in the 1700s, moved south to escape persecution and deportation during the 1800s, as did their cousins, the Miccosukee. Japanese pineapple farmers formed the Yamato farming colony at Delay Beach in 1905. The Amish established a community near Sarasota, and Cuban refugees flooded Miami after Fidel Castro’s coup of Cuba in 1953.
A flurry of land speculators flooded the region in the early 1900s, ditching and draining the Everglades in exchange for massive grants of land from the state. Land scam shenanigans ensued through the 1920s Florida boom and subsequent bust, building up coastal communities that today are sprawling cities. South and Central Americans seeking investment properties have flocked to cosmopolitan Miami and Miami Beach, as have celebrities from around the world. Many South Florida cities are the termini of highways starting in the Northeast and Midwest, and so it is here that many people end up when looking for a retirement home or a getaway from fierce winter weather, which is why “snowbirds” make the population swell tremendously during the winter months.
With its arts communities and historic sites, seaside resorts and forests to roam, rural retreats, urban chic, and some of the best fishing and diving in the United States, South Florida is a destination with plenty to explore.
I’m pleased to introduce Trish Riley as my new collaborator in this very large swath of the state. Trish has lived in Fort Lauderdale for 17 years, is an award-winning environmental journalist, and is the author of several books about the region, including Great Destinations: Palm Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale & the Florida Keys, an ecoguide to the region, as well as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living; she is also the coauthor of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Greening Your Business.
Prices for lodgings and restaurants are subject to change, and shops come and go. Your feedback is essential for subsequent editions of this guide. Feel free to write us in care of The Countryman Press or Explorer’s Guide, P.O. Box 424, Micanopy 32667, or e-mail eg@genuineflorida.com or GoldCoast@trishriley.com with your opinions and your own treasured finds. You’ll find updates to this book posted at www.genuineflorida.com.
“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
—Miriam Beard