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It’s also larger than Rhode Island
Big Cypress National Preserve covers 729,000 acres of subtropical swampland in south Florida, sitting between Miami and Naples with the Everglades running along its southern edge.
Five different ecosystems live inside those borders: cypress swamps, prairies, pinelands, hardwood hammocks, and estuaries. You can show up any hour of any day, and you won’t pay a dime to get in.
The freshwater flowing through here keeps the Everglades and the coastal marine estuaries alive, and what lives in this swamp will surprise you.
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A 1960s jetport almost paved over the whole swamp
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples called this swamp home, starting with the Calusa and later the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes…