Everglades National Park Institute at Flamingo — Local services in Key Largo

We did the Backcountry Boat Tour on a Friday morning at 9AM in late Dec 2024. There were a number of mosquitos in the parking lot and marina area as we were waiting for the tour to begin.

You check-in for your tour at this little shack that is next to the marina store. I think our tour was sold out but we had purchased tickets months before hand and we actually stayed the night on one of the house boats so we didn't have to rush and drive all the way in from the park entrance in the morning. Since you can sleep 6 people on the house boat easy it was cheaper than booking 2 rooms in the lodge or 2 ecotents.

There was kind of a unofficial line that we just started standing next to the dock that lead to the boat. You want to get in this line early and it's better to do this and deal with the mosquitos because there are definitely better seats on the boat than others.

The boat itself was quite large and held a good number of people. It had a captain and a tour guide as staff. We got seats right at the front of the boat. There is actually a small gap so that you can sit at the front and face forward instead of facing backward incase you get motion sick or sea sick. But it wasn't a lot of space. It worked great for my kids. You also got a amazing unobstructed view. There is a large canopy on the majority of the boat which I could see being a much more desirable spot maybe in the summer heat or mid-day sun but it was early morning and overcast skies during our tour.

The tour starts off slow going though the the tight waterway. We did see some birds. It was cool seeing all the amazing examples of mangroves. We did speed up at sections and we saw 1 manatee but they said it was rare they would come all the way down there. They are usually on the other side. We did have to slow down when passing kayakers.

We went all the way out to coot bay and then we went fast across the bay which was fun for the kids. We really didn't see much wildlife zooming across the bay but it was fun. Then we turned around and went back. On the way back in the waterway we did see 3 different crocodiles (not alligators). They were just babies. Very exciting though. When we got back to the marina there were 2 giant crocodiles just laying on the boat launch area. We joked and said we didn't have to go on the tour at all to see anything!

The tour itself was okay. We saw a good number of different animal species. I'm glad we did it but I don't think we would do it again. Maybe next time rent kayaks and just do it ourselves. We did have much time in Flamingo so we figured this was the best way to see as much...

The ecotour we went on was an amazing experience. We saw dolphins by boat, previewed the kayaking location and saw quite a few crocodiles, and then went to walk on a secluded beach with only the tour group present where we saw pelicans hunting and more wildlife. We then went kayaking where we saw more crocodiles along with many sandpipers and other bird species. We even saw some flamingos before going through a mangrove tunnel (very fun), where we saw even more wildlife.

All of this was made more enjoyable by Clayton, our captain and guide, as he was very knowledgeable about the ecology and history of the area we were exploring. He was also able to give very clear instructions when needed on kayak and boat, allowing for safe viewing and photography of...

I went on the Backcountry Boat Tour in September. The crew were great! The naturalist was easy to understand and shared a lot of interesting information. We went through rainstorms twice during the tour. Mosquitos were not a problem, except when the boat stopped to view a crocodile, and then we were swarmed! It would seem reasonable for the boat to have zip down side panels for rainstorms and mesh screens for (some) mosquito control. (Yes, I had rain gear and wore bug spray.) Due to their no-refund policy, I would highly recommend booking any tickets close to tour time once there. (One of our party felt unwell, so we lost the full ticket price even though it was not a full tour group, and no one had been...