Just a short drive from the hustle and bustle of Miami, the Everglades are a true wonderland of nature. The ecosystem covers a large part of southern Florida, but the national park only makes up about 20 percent of that area. It is still a huge park that, despite the well-known problems regarding pollution, water management, human encroachment, and invasive species, offers a wide variety of landscapes and a wealth of animal and plant species. Most people go by car, but if you don't have your own transport, there are basically 2 ways to visit the park (during a week in Miami, I tried out both). First, you can join of the many guided bus tours that take you to the northernmost edge of the park along the Tamiami Trail where the local tribes run several airboat businesses (our tour went to the Everglades Safari park, which also features a small zoo and an alligator show). This is the classic Everglades experience, and actually quite enjoyable (they turn off the engine after a while and you do get to see quite a number of animals, including alligators, snakes, and many different birds). The northern edge of the park is the only place where airboats are permitted (this area was only added to the park in 1989, the rest is a designated wilderness area; so I am not totally sure if this area is actually part of the WHS). Alternatively, the city of Homestead (on the eastern edge of the park) offers bus tours free of charge on weekends between late November and early May (called "National Parks Trolley"). This is the only public transport into the park and it worked quite well for me. The bus ride from Miami down to Homestead is really long and boring, but then the trolleys take you into the national park quite smoothly. They first stop at the Ernest Coe Visitor Centre, which has some nice exhibits on the history and ecology of the park, and then continue to the Royal Palm Visitor Centre, from where 2 easy hiking trails can be accessed - the Gumbo Limbo, a forest trail, and the well-known Anhinga Trail, which is mostly a boardwalk through a marshland, and which really lets you see the landscape of the Everglades, as well as many different animals. On each visit, I saw several alligators - the Everglades' and Florida's iconic animals -, and a wide range of birds, from vultures to cranes, but the famous mammals - manatees and pumas - are obviously nowhere close to the tourist trails. Mosquitoes, of course, are also everywhere, even though in winter, they are not much of a problem, and the bites disappeared after a few days... So if you don't mind the bugs, a visit to the Everglades is definitely a must for anyone spending a winter vacation in South Florida.