Tag 376 - Boat Trip to the 10,000 Islands

Haaaaaaallo dear friends!

We decided to stay close by today, as the nature here is truly beautiful!

Since we didn’t have any plans on what to do, we got ourselves and the camper ready for travel and took care of what needed to be done first: shopping. Not easy at all, right in the middle of a nature reserve…

We found a very small supermarket about 30 minutes from our location.

We drove into the village of “Everglades City”, which was very pretty and had all its houses built on stilts.

First, we made a stop at a restaurant because I had been raving about the delicious American burgers since our arrival and hadn’t yet had one ☺️

This restaurant probably wasn’t the best choice, as it seemed quite deserted, and even though the burgers were tasty, our stomachs reacted shortly afterwards…

After lunch, we bought some groceries, but the small store didn’t offer much with its mostly empty shelves. But it would suffice for now ☺️

Just six minutes from us was an island called “Chokoloskee”, which had a group of islands (the 10,000 Islands) surrounding it.

This became our new destination: We wanted to take a boat trip to those 10,000 islands.

So we headed over to the island and looked for a tour operator.

This turned out to be more difficult than expected, as everything there seemed completely deserted.

After a while, we discovered a sign offering boat tours right by a small shop - we went in to ask.

And, we were lucky ☺️

The gentleman was very friendly and immediately called a tour operator. It was only 1 PM, and the next tour wouldn’t start until 4 PM, but we received a discount. We decided to book the tour, and the friendly gentleman we spoke to happened to be in charge of a campground. We would have liked to stay there; the site was beautiful, but at a price of USD 195.-, we decided instead on a 25-minute drive to a campground for just USD 24.-!

However, the friendly gentleman invited us to spend the waiting time in the campground's pool.

We gladly accepted this offer, as having a pool this time is not a given, and the weather was nice and warm.

We took a seat on the dock, watched the pelicans, strolled around the campground with its impressive vehicles, and splashed around in the pool.

The waiting time flew by, and soon it was time to get ready.

Right on time at 4 PM, the captain arrived, and along with four other guests, we boarded the boat.

The islands were mostly composed of mangroves, and only very rarely did they have solid ground or a beach.

We saw many white pelicans and at times we were even accompanied by two dolphins! The trip was very nice, but I had forgotten our sweaters in the camper, which we strongly felt in the last hour.

After two hours on the sea, we were back on land, took our camper, and drove to the other campground.

When we arrived, it was already dark again.

We parked our vehicle on the site we had reserved online, cooked some pasta for dinner, and let the day wind down.

So, that’s it for today, and we say:

See you tomoooooorrow ☺️