Everglades Isles RV Retreat - Everglades City, FL
Jan 13 - 19, 2014
Trip Mile Marker 1,461
Last year, in our trip blog, we mentioned our chance discovery and tour of Everglade Isles RV Retreat. Located in Everglades City, FL, the RV resort is 30 miles from the outskirts of Naples and about the same distance from Marco Island. Everglades City is a small fishing and tourist community with around 500 full time residents that swells to a larger number in the winter as sportsmen and tourists lodge in the area. Originally occupied by Indians it is bounded from the Gulf by the area called Ten Thousand Islands and to the east by Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. The Gulf Coast Visitors Center for Everglades National Park is located in the city and tourists from Naples, Marco Island Fort Meyers etc come to the area to take airboat rides into the glades. The area is the largest harvester of Stone Crabs and the famous Joe's Stone Crab restaurants has a large operation to supply their restaurants. Not unlike Key West, the residents discovered during the 70’s that picking up marijuana bales dropped in the swamp by low flying airplanes provided a handsome income. President Reagan put the kibosh to that business with his War on Drugs. Now it is a sleepy little town that wakes up every day in the winter to load and unload the fishing boats and tote the tourists around in airboats.
All that history as a backdrop to Everglade Isles RV Retreat. It is a beautiful luxury RV resort built on the waterfront in Everglades City. Many of the RV sites front out to the waterfront where the resort has constructed boat docks all along its perimeter. It has a clubhouse that would rival any exclusive country club that includes a media room, spa, exercise room and swimming pool. Built by a couple of investors in 2008 just in time for the economy crash, this little 70 site RV resort has simply not been discovered. Although it is 30 miles to a large grocery store, we loved the amenities, the location with a dock out our front door, the fellow RVers that had made the same discovery and the isolation from the traffic jams of Naples.
I had intended to arrange a fishing trip with a local fishing guide. Unfortunately most of the days we were at Everglades City, the weather was unseasonably cool. So instead of securing a guide and using their equipment, I paid way too much money for a basic fishing equipment (that I should have packed from home) at the little True Value Hardware store and fished off the dock in front of our motorhome. My fishing skills yielded nothing. But in my defense, the experts were telling me the water was too cold for good fishing. Sitting on the dock and taking in the sunlight and water activity was worth the purchase.
There were several restaurants in the area. They were small, rustic and typical for fishing town restaurants but each one we ate in was excellent. Spruce Creek friends staying in Naples visited one day for an excellent outdoor lunch at City Seafood, a short walk from our RV site. City Seafood was also our source of fresh grouper and scallops for our own cooking. Camelias also in walking range, served up a great lunch. And the short hop to Chokoloskee Island you will find the Havana Café, which serves up some extraordinary Cuban food. There is no shortage of good food.
Everglades City and the location of the Gulf Visitors Center for Everglades National Park is a magnet for adventurers who want to take a kayak or canoe into the Everglades and Ten Thousand Island area. Camping permits are granted and guided tours can be arranged. Sounds like fun but I’m not sure Mary and I would find compatibility on a 7 day kayak trip with wet camping gear, mosquitoes, aligators and the growing population of boa constrictors in the swamp.
I did a couple of pre-sunrise hikes into the Big Marsh area to photograph the birds. I only yielded a few tolerable photos since the weather was cloudy one day and my photo bag needed a telephoto lens that reaches out a little further. Mary and I did a short hike on the Big Cypress trail which has huge old growth cypress trees, lots of wildlife and a nice elevated wood deck trail.
Similar to the tourist boats out of Everglades National Park, our RV park has its own boat to take guests out into the Ten Thousand Island area. The water is beautiful and is like an unstructured polka dot fabric with little islands everywhere you look. Fish and birdlife abound in the area. We went out for a couple of hours with some fellow RVers and saw dolphins, an island full of white pelicans and an osprey among many other bird species. Well worth the trip.
We had reserved for 4 nights at Everglades Isle. Three days into our stay we decided to stay another 3 nights. As we are leaving, we are reserving for 4 weeks in 2015 which will allow us to take in the Everglades City Seafood Festival that brings in loads of people, food and music. And many of the fellow RVers we met from Winnipeg, Texas, Clearwater etc will be returning at the same time. We are already looking forward to 2015.
A Diamond in the Glades
Monday, January 13, 2014
Everglades City, Florida, United States
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