Airboats and Everglades National Park

Before you ride, a few friendly minutes on the park around the boats. Plenty of listings sell an "Everglades National Park airboat tour", yet airboats are banned for visitors in most of the park. A handful of long-running businesses on the Tamiami Trail operate as park concessions, and most other rides run outside the boundary. This guide sorts out where the boats may go and what the entrance fee covers, then looks at the park itself.

A park built around a river of grass

Everglades National Park was dedicated in 1947 and covers about 1.5 million acres at the southern tip of Florida. It became a World Heritage Site in 1979, and it is also listed as an International Biosphere Reserve and as a Wetland of International Importance.

The water that feeds it starts far to the north. The Everglades is a shallow sheet of water and sawgrass moving south from Lake Okeechobee toward Florida Bay, so slowly that it travels a few hundred feet a day at most. In 1947, the year the park was dedicated, Marjory Stoneman Douglas published The Everglades: River of Grass, and the phrase has stuck to the place ever since. Sawgrass is really a sedge with saw-toothed edges, one good reason to keep your hands inside the boat.

Where airboats may and may not go

For visitors, airboats are banned in most of the park. The exception goes back to 1989, when the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act added the East Everglades to the park. Airboat operators that were already established along the Tamiami Trail at the time could stay on as park concessions. Gator Park, from ~$37, says in its listing that it is an authorized Everglades National Park concession. A handful of others on the same road hold that status, and we leave them unnamed here.

Even the concession boats ride only a small part of the park. The park's share of Florida Bay and the mangrove coast is closed to airboats and reached by park-run boat tours and paddlers. The guide to the other ways in covers those slower routes.

Where the other rides run

Most airboat rides you can book run outside the park, in one of three kinds of places.

  • Miccosukee tribal land. The Miccosukee Tribe has a reservation that stretches along the Tamiami Trail. Wild Lime's airboat hour is run by a Miccosukee family, and Tours by Max, from ~$128, rides with Miccosukee captains and drives its guests through the reservation;
  • State Water Conservation Areas. Along US 27 west of Fort Lauderdale, two parks run their boats in state-managed water. They are Everglades Holiday Park and Sawgrass Recreation Park in Weston. Wide Angle Tours, from ~$75, brings its van groups from Miami to Everglades Holiday Park;
  • The Gulf side. Near Everglades City and Naples, Everglades Day Safari's Western Everglades tour, from ~$100, adds a nature walk and a reptile program to its airboat hour. The catch is the drive, since it starts on the Gulf side and Miami is two hours or more away.

If it matters to you which side of the boundary a ride stays on, ask the operator before you book. Where the airboats launch describes each ramp.

Reading the listing titles

Booking sites love the words "Everglades National Park". On a listing title they often mean a ride near or beside the park. Wild Lime's half day is a fair example of a mixed case. Its naturalist walk through a tropical hardwood hammock does take place inside the park, and the ticket covers the entrance fees, but the airboat hour afterwards runs with a Miccosukee family on tribal land. Nobody is hiding anything; the boat simply cannot go where the walk goes. On a self-drive ride, the meeting point on the listing shows where it launches, and that tells you more than the title.

Hammock trees with twisting branches reflected in still dark water near Gator Park on the Tamiami Trail

A concession ride on the Trail

Gator Park calls itself an authorized park concession and pairs a 35–40-minute narrated airboat ride with a wildlife show, from ~$37, with roughly $8 per guest added as a park fee. Plans can change at no cost until a day before.

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Entrance fees and passes

Driving into the park through a main entrance costs about $35 per private vehicle for seven days. A US national parks annual pass covers it. An airboat ride outside the park needs no park ticket at all. Fees can change, so check the amount with the park before you go.

Gator Park's listing adds its park fee of about $8 per person on top of the ride price. The listing waives it for these guests:

  • children under 16
  • holders of a park pass
  • seniors
  • military members and veterans

Wild Lime's half day, from ~$189, already includes the park entrance fees, since its walk happens inside the park. What an Everglades airboat tour costs adds up these extras for a whole family.

The three entrances

The park has three main gateways, far apart from one another, and you drive around the park to get between them.

  • Shark Valley sits on the Tamiami Trail west of Miami, on the same road as many airboat ramps. Its tram loop is the easiest park visit to pair with a ride;
  • Ernest F. Coe lies near Homestead and starts the road to Flamingo on Florida Bay. Royal Palm and the Anhinga Trail are along that road;
  • Gulf Coast is at Everglades City on the western side, where boat tours head into the Ten Thousand Islands.

Winter is the comfortable time for all three, and the best time for an airboat ride goes through the seasons one by one.

Guided inside the park

Wild Lime Adventures is certified and permitted to guide inside Everglades National Park and in Big Cypress National Preserve, which is why its tours can include a guided walk inside the park. Its full-day tour, from ~$295, has a boat cruise as well as the walk and the airboat ride. Lunch is included. A biologist or naturalist guides the group. The catch is its length of roughly 9 hours, and the route shifts when the water is low.

Restoration in a few lines

Canals and levees built over the past century for flood control and farming cut off much of the water that once flowed south, and even the Tamiami Trail, opened in 1928, worked partly as a barrier. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan is a long federal and state effort to send more of that water back along its old path. For the birds and alligators you hope to see from the boat, how much water reaches the marsh is what counts. Our wildlife guide covers who lives there.

Park rules

What visitors ask about the park

Are airboats allowed in Everglades National Park?

Not in most of it. Visitors may not use airboats across the bulk of the park. The 1989 expansion that brought in the East Everglades let a few existing Tamiami Trail operators stay on as concessions, and most other rides run outside the boundary.

Is Gator Park inside Everglades National Park?

Its listing describes it as an authorized concession of the park, on the Tamiami Trail. Its ride from ~$37 lasts 35–40 minutes plus a wildlife show, and the park fee in its listing comes to roughly $8 per guest.

How much is the Everglades National Park entrance fee?

Roughly $35 for a private vehicle, good for seven days at the main entrances, and the annual national parks pass also gets you in. Rides outside the boundary need no park ticket. Gator Park, as a concession, adds a park fee of about $8 per person to its ticket.

Can I visit the park and take an airboat ride in one day?

Yes. Wild Lime Adventures' half day from ~$189 combines a walk inside the park with an hour on a Miccosukee-run airboat. If you drive yourself, pair Shark Valley with an airboat ramp on the same road.

What are the main entrances to Everglades National Park?

Shark Valley on the Tamiami Trail west of Miami, Ernest F. Coe near Homestead with the road to Flamingo, and the Gulf Coast entrance at Everglades City. They are far apart, so plan on one per day.

Rules read

Now pick the ride

Airboat or cruise, and what each option costs.