In early February I spent a full day exploring the Royal Palm and Flamingo areas of Everglades National Park. It felt like a holiday: it was warm and sunny, signage and interpretation were perfect, no rush, no crowds.

It may be telling that all reviewers so far chose a picture of an alligator or a water bird to accompany their story. Probably that’s because the landscape views aren’t that great. Especially when you have arrived from a flat country covered in wetlands like me, the scenery superficially will be very familiar, including the many egrets and herons. It often reminded me of De Biesbosch National Park in the Netherlands.

Everglades NP supports no less than 9 different ecosystems though, and they are highlighted in the dozen or so little boardwalks and viewpoints you can take in when you make your way down from the Homestead entrance to Flamingo. Covering them all requires little effort, I only walked 8km that day. My stops in order from the entrance were:

• Anahinga trail: great start, with lots of birds and weird-looking plants and trees. It's also the only place to see alligators on this route as they prefer freshwater.
• Gumbo Limbo trail: lots of mosquitos here, but the moist surroundings prevent the trees from wildfire damage. Has Gumbo Limbo trees of course but you see them at other spots too.
• The weird bald-cypress trees, without leaves this time of year.
• Pa-hay-okee: best views over the ‘sea of grass’.
• Mahogany Hammock: The best example of a ‘hammock’, an area of a higher elevation and dry ground, with its own ecosystem. Dense tree coverage so relatively shaded.
• Paurotis Pond: chance to spot Roseate Spoonbills but I didn’t see any.
• West Lake: mangroves, with a pretty boardwalk into the lake.
• Eco Pond: an unpaved trail that loops around the lake, gets hot here.
• Coastal Trail: path along the shoreline of Florida Bay.

It all ends up at the coast in Flamingo, which is a small marina annex visitor center. While I only encountered 2 or 3 cars at the stops along the way, the parking lots here showed at least 100 of them. People like to do water-based activities from here such as kayaking. For lunch, there’s a well-stocked shop (even with a microwave to heat some ready-made meals) or the recently opened Flamingo Lodge restaurant. The marina is a surprisingly good spot for wildlife as well, as it has both a salty side and a brackish side: manatees pop their heads above the water to breathe right near the piers, and on the other side crocodiles lie sunbathing. They also have an osprey nest which the birds return to every year. I was especially happy to discover the manatees, as they are a mammal species that always had eluded me globally. They like the warm water and seagrass of Florida Bay and are a sure bet here.

To finish off the day, I joined the Backcountry Boat Tour at 3 pm. It’s done with a fairly small boat (we were 33 guests) and it goes via the manmade Wilderness Waterway and the Tarpon Creek to the Coot Bay and back in 1.5 hours. This is all brackish water, and we had good views of crocodiles, more manatees and the native tricoloured heron. The vegetation mostly consists of various types of mangroves. It wasn’t the most spectacular boat ride ever, but the naturalist did explain the animal and plant life well.