After talking about it for so long, we finally visited Biscayne National Park in Homestead, Florida. We pass through Homestead multiple times per year when we travel from our home in Melbourne Beach, Florida down to the Florida Keys. However, it seems like we are always on a tight schedule or the timing isn’t right to make the time to visit Biscayne National Park, especially because we knew we would want to visit by boat. Finally, we figured out a plan that would work. Our boys had the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school this year, so we left our house on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, loaded up the boat and our dog, and headed down to Homestead. It’s only about 3 hours from our house, but we left in the afternoon so we arrived at dinnertime and spent that night in a hotel in Homestead. The next morning, we woke up, drove to the gas station to fuel the boat and load up on snacks and water, and we made our way to the entrance of Biscayne National Park.
Biscayne National Park is an interesting National Park because most of it is on or under the water. The Dante Fascell Visitor Center is on land, overlooking the water, but the rest of the park is 173,000 acres of water, as seen on the map below.
The Visitor Center is really nice, and includes a building with an educational area featuring exhibits, theater, guides, and information. There is also a small a gift shop. There is a really pretty boardwalk that runs along the perimeter of the property; many people fish off it, but it was fun to explore, enjoy the views, and look at the fish in the water.
If you are like many visitors and did not bring your own boat, guided tours leave from this area. You can book a kayak tour or many different types of boat tours. If seemed like some boats were just going out to sightsee, while others were going out for snorkeling and scuba diving. There are many underwater shipwrecks to explore as well as coral reefs. This website provides options for boating tours in Biscayne National Park.
Since we had our boat with us, we drove over to the nearest boat ramp at Black Point Marina, launched our boat, parked our trailer, and off we went. Notice I didn’t say we paid… oops. Don’t be like us, make sure you pay or you will get a ticket!
Our first stop was Elliot Key, an island with a marina and some buildings. The bugs were pretty bad on the island everywhere except right near the water. We didn’t get very far in our exploring, but we walked around a bit, found some trees to climb, and met a lemur! The lemur was a pet and a definite highlight of our visit to Biscayne! Elliot Key has camping facilities, which might be fun, but the bugs are really bad!
Next we made our way to Boca Chita Key, and it was crowded! There is a really pretty harbor where you can dock your boat, but all of the spaces were full when we arrived. The boys really wanted to explore the island, so we hopped off and let Brian cruise around until (hopefully) a boat left and he could dock.
First we went to the idyllic little lighthouse, but we were disappointed that we couldn’t go in. I guess they are doing construction on it until the Spring of 2024. We checked out the cannons and the other adorable buildings on the island. We explored some more and found a sandy beach with gorgeous water, so we stayed and played a bit in that area.
We ventured over to another side of the island just to check things out.
Once we left Boca Chita Key, we cruised around a bit to see if we could find any good snorkeling spots. We were all a little bit unmotivated as the air and water weren’t that warm that day, so no one really wanted to stay out there much longer, let alone jump in the water. We decided to head back to shore because we had a few more hours of driving ahead of us to get down to our destination in the Florida Keys.
There is another island that is part of Biscayne National Park called Adams Key, but we didn’t get a chance to visit that one.
Biscayne National Park is the perfect destination to pair with Everglades National Park. They are very close together and I believe you could even explore both in one day. We visited Everglades National Park but it was a long time ago and unfortunately I didn’t write a blog post about it. For Florida residents, these two National Parks might not feel very special, but for anyone else who is not used to spending a lot of time in Florida’s natural areas and south Florida’s waterways, these two parks are definitely something special.
