A boardwalk winds through the wetlands in the Royal Palm area of Everglades National Park, allowing visitors a close-up view of lush plant life, birds, fish and reptiles.
Canoes provide an even more intimate look.
Our grade school maps showed a region covered with little blue dashes and almost no roads. That nebulous land stretched from big Lake Okeechobee down to the very edge of Florida's mainland. The first time I flew over Florida, the little blue dashes became a green and black expanse, a weird extension of the ocean, where things seemed to grow magically out of the water. So, like so many northerners, I came to think of southern Florida as a worthless place that no one but the gullible would desire. On a recent visit, at ground level, I learned that my perception could not have been any more wrong.