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Florida

Kayaking the Everglades: Exploring the River of Grass

Program No. 21349RJ

Discover the delicate beauty of Florida’s Everglades with experts and naturalists, discussing the region’s unique ecology, history and culture as you kayak this great American preserve.

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Protecting the Environment

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6 days

5 nights

13 meals

5B 4L 4D

Check-in, Registration, Welcome Dinner, Orientation

Everglades City, FL

East River, Everglades Lecture

Everglades City, FL

Rookery Bay, Twilight Paddle

Everglades City, FL

Paddle 10,000 Islands to Sandfly Island

Everglades City, FL

Paddle the Turner River

Everglades City, FL

Wrap Up Lecture, Program Concludes

Everglades City, FL

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At a Glance

When Marjory Stoneman Douglas published her book “The Everglades: River of Grass” in 1947, she called attention to the deterioration of the largest wilderness east of the Mississippi. Since then, the establishment of the national park and painstaking restoration and preservation efforts have helped maintain the Everglades as a natural treasure. With experts and naturalists, kayak the subtropical rivers that flow through it to experience the beauty of its pristine estuaries and to gain personal understanding of what makes its ecology unique.

Activity Level

Outdoor: Spirited

Paddling up to six miles, walking up to two miles per day. Getting on and off motor coach and vans.

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Experience a twilight paddle on the East River.
Paddle through the 10,000 Islands and learn the history of Calusa Shell Mound settlers who raised tomatoes on the islands in the early 1900s.
Learn about unique adaptations of flora and fauna from a naturalist in Big Cypress National Preserve.

General Notes

Kayaking equipment provided. Airport Transfer at added cost.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Dillon Griffin

As a professional back country navigator, Dillon is blessed to have spent most of his career sharing areas such as The Everglades, in southern Florida, and the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. He credits his education and upbringing for instilling a strong passion for the great outdoors and exposing people to new environments. His programs reflect his understanding of the importance of preserving and protecting our public lands. While away from work, Dillon enjoys spending time with family, and in the outdoors.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Dillon Griffin View biography

Suggested Reading List (9 books)

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You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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Kayaking the Everglades: Exploring the River of Grass

Program Number: 21349

The Everglades: Stories of Grit and Spirit from the Mangrove Wilderness

by Anne McCrary Sullivan and Holly Genzen

Everglades National Park’s mangrove ecosystem, extending over 230,000 acres of south Florida, is the most expansive in the western hemisphere and the largest continuous system of mangroves in the world. Most of this mangrove area is remote, accessible only by boat, complex and difficult to navigate. In The Everglades: Stories of Grit and Spirit from the Mangrove Wilderness we hear 21 stories from people who have ventured into this wilderness—for scientific work, artistic work, search-and-rescue missions, for personal renewal, or for the pure adventure of it. They tell stories of manatee rescue, shark encounters, storms and strandings, stories of environmental value and threat, wild beauty, personal enchantment and spirit. Together these stories reveal a world beyond the reach of most travelers. They also offer support and offer enticement to the intrepid few who may venture “out there” and return with stories of their own.

Hidden History of Everglades City & Points Nearby

by Maureen Sullivan-Hartung

This book is a collection of quirky and fun stories about the history of Everglades City. Drawing from the author's time as a reporter for the Everglades City Echo, this book will chronicle lesser-known stories about the area. The book discusses the original pioneer families of Everglades City, and the time when this city was the governing center of Collier County. It goes on to chronicle colorful characters from the area, local landmarks, and the annual Seafood Festival that draws 20,000 people to the city every year.

Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.

The Everglades: River of Grass

by Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a journalist and a pioneering environmentalist who helped defend the Florida Everglades. As a young woman, she was a writer and editor at the Miami Herald, which her father helped to establish in 1910. She became known for work in nature conservancy after her 1947 book Everglades: River of Grass was published, but it was many years later, in 1969 at age 79, when she founded the Friends of the Everglades. She was not only an advocate for the environment but also for women’s right to vote and for racial equality. In 1993, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Douglas died on May 14, 1998 at the age of 108.

The Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas

by ed. Jack E. Davis

Often described as the savior of the Everglades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas is best known for having been Florida's most passionate environmentalist, but she was first, foremost, and always a writer. As the author of fiction and nonfiction books, most notably The Everglades: River of Grass, and scores of short stories, Douglas devoted over ninety years to her career as a writer. Her fascinating and little-known work as a journalist began as a columnist for the Miami Herald. The Wide Brim presents a collection of her best articles--many of which were preceded by a poem of her own composition--from her daily column ""The Galley,"" which ran from 1920 until 1923. The selections reflect Douglas's many voices, which made her a distinctive commentator of the time: nature lover, South Florida booster, political analyst, woman, social progressive, intellectual, and philosopher and observer of human nature. With the same passion and eloquence that she became famous for in later years, Douglas maneuvered gracefully from one topic to the next. From straightforward commentary to witty prose, from harsh criticism to infectious humor, from biting sarcasm to whimsical verse, from glimpses into nature to those into human nature, the rich and vibrant voice of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in her 30s is now readily accessible.

A River in Flood and Other Florida Stories by Marjory Stoneman Douglas

by ed. Kevin McCarthy

In the pantheon of Florida writers, Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) is cherished as the grand dame. Famous as the author of The Everglades: River of Grass, prolific as a writer, and passionate as an environmental crusader for almost a century, she became the nation's best link to a remarkable era in Florida history. The timeless themes of her stories in this new collection resonate with interest for readers today. Whether the subject is hurricanes, cockfighting, real estate deals, struggling immigrants, or corruption in the Everglades, Douglas wrote about it with distinction--and usually first. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post during the 1920s and 1930s, the golden age of the short story, these nine works have never before been collected or available in one place.

Totch: A Life in the Everglades

by Lore G. "Totch" Brown

In the mysterious wilderness of swamps, marshes, and rivers that conceals life in the Florida Everglades, Totch Brown hung up his career as alligator hunter and commercial fisherman to become a self-confessed pot smuggler. Before the marijuana money rolled in, he survived excruciating poverty in one of the most primitive and beautiful spots on earth, Chokoloskee Island, in the mangrove keys known as the Ten Thousand Islands located at the western gateway to the Everglades National Park.

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise

by Michael Grunwald

The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land.

Unconquered People : Florida's Seminole and Miccosukee Indians

by Brent Richards Weisman

Examines the history and culture of Florida's Seminole and Miccosukee Indians, and discusses how the tribes have managed to withstand historical challenges and survive in the modern world.

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Kayaking the Everglades: Exploring the River of Grass

Enroll with Confidence

Protecting the Environment

At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

General Notes

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