Florida’s flamingos are again. Here’s the place to see them within the Everglades.

With their impossibly lengthy legs and lipstick hue, flamingos sport a memorable look. Their picture adorns Florida postcards, vacationer websites, and TV exhibits, however the state’s inhabitants of untamed flamingos was just about extinct for 100 years resulting from plume searching and habitat loss. Then in 2023, they started claiming headlines when a number of blew in from Cuba and Mexico on the winds of Hurricane Idalia.

“There was a pink invasion,” says Audubon Florida’s Keith Laakkonen, director of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Some of those flamingos stayed on, particularly across the Florida Bay shoreline, which can be the perch of the aptly named Flamingo outpost of Everglades National Park.

The Everglades’ southernmost customer hub, Flamingo has seen its personal resurgence, after struggling injury from a number of hurricanes. Now it incorporates a remodeled visitor center and a brand new lodge—the one one within the park.

Here, vacationers can expertise the fabled “river of grass,” the largest subtropical wilderness in North America, and spot a fascinating array of wildlife—together with, with some luck, flamingos. “When you see one,” Laakkonen says, “you get a sense of awe.”

What occurred to Florida’s flamingos

From the Homestead entrance to Everglades National Park, it’s an hour-long drive to achieve Flamingo, on the very tip of Florida. This distant location the place freshwater marshes merge into the ocean presents a singular expertise, says Riley Hays, the park’s Flamingo district interpreter. “The sense of solitude and the dynamic meeting of ecosystems make it unlike anywhere else in the national park system.”

Historically, Flamingo was top-of-the-line locations in Florida to see flamingos. In 1893, hardscrabble residents named their settlement after the fowl, which at the moment numbered within the hundreds. When fancy feathered hats grew to become all the fashion, those self same birds grew to become targets. One feather may fetch $500 in in the present day’s valuation.

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Many of Florida’s elegant wading birds had been decimated, and “flamingos probably took the hardest hit,” Laakkonen says. After Audubon recreation warden Guy Bradley was killed by hunters in Flamingo whereas making an attempt to guard the birds, widespread outrage led to a federal ban on the practice.

When the nationwide park was established in 1947—the first one created for biodiversity—Flamingo’s remaining residents had been relocated and a few primary facilities added. About 10 years later, a visitor center, restaurant, and lodge opened, making Flamingo a hotspot for the subsequent a number of many years. That is, till 2005’s double whammy of hurricanes Katrina and Wilma brought on a lot injury that the lodge needed to shut. In 2018, after Hurricane Irma, the customer heart adopted swimsuit.

During rebuilding, the park service targeted on “resilience, sustainability, and immersion in the natural environment,” Hays says. The new lodge and restaurant debuted in October 2023, constructed from elevated delivery containers that may higher stand up to hurricanes, flooding, and sea-level rise.

Flamingo Lodge—that includes 24 studios and suites outfitted with well-equipped kitchenettes and personal balconies overlooking the glittering waters of Florida Bay—makes a snug base for exploration. For the extra adventurous, different in a single day choices embrace houseboats, glamping-style eco-tents, and campgrounds.

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At the restaurant, you may refill on burritos, burgers, and your personal recent catch, which the kitchen will prepare dinner. The reworked customer heart, now named for the heroic Guy Bradley, saved its mod pink exterior however up to date displays on the ecosystem and early inhabitants, improved accessibility, and added options to protect towards hurricanes.

Ironically, it was additionally a hurricane that introduced again the flamingos. Now top-of-the-line locations to glimpse these 5-foot-tall Florida natives is, as soon as once more, in Flamingo.

Where to see flamingos within the Everglades

In 2025, a file 125 flamingos had been seen in Florida Bay. Experts estimate that there are about 60 regulars within the Flamingo space, however they’re not at all times simple to identify. Hays suggests scanning shallow coastal areas and mudflats, particularly alongside Snake Bight Trail and Christian Point Trail, at low tide when the birds feed on the algae and brine shrimp that give them their colour. There’s even an opportunity to catch a flamboyance—sure, that’s the time period for a flock of flamingos—proper in entrance of the customer heart.

For the newest location intel, discuss to on-site naturalists and others who’re out and about. And make sure you use binoculars or a telephoto lens to maintain a respectful distance. “If you find yourself getting so close that the birds’ behavior is changing, back off,” Laakkonen advises. Travelers all in favour of contributing to flamingo conservation efforts can report sightings to the eBird or iNaturalist apps, which is able to assist scientists monitor numbers and places.

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Though flamingos get many of the consideration, they’re removed from the one eye-popping sights right here. Walk the broad grassy path round Eco Pond for the chance to see one other gorgeous pink wading fowl, the roseate spoonbill. Smaller than flamingos, they’ve ruby-red eyes and a protracted, flat-tipped invoice that they sweep forwards and backwards by means of the shallows.

From the native marina, naturalist-guided boat tours head out to the open waters of Florida Bay to view emerald-green mangrove keys and search for pelicans, cormorants, dolphins, and osprey, maybe toting a just lately snagged sea trout.

Boat excursions additionally go the other way, into backcountry creeks and canals which can be dwelling to herons, anhingas, wooden storks, alligators, and crocodiles, which might look particularly fearsome with their toothy mouths agape, a method of temperature regulation. (South Florida is the one place on the earth the place alligators and crocodiles co-exist.)

Nighttime excursions provide a few of the finest stargazing within the southeastern U.S. resulting from very low ranges of sunshine air pollution. If you like to discover by yourself, lease a canoe or kayak. In the marina itself, it’s possible you’ll spot mild manatees elevating their broad whiskered snout for a breath of air.

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For all these animals and their surroundings, the presence of flamingos is an efficient signal. It signifies that many years of restoration work within the Everglades are making a distinction. And it reconnects a cultural image of Florida with a dwelling, wild actuality, Hays says. “Their return offers a glimpse into the past while also signaling hope for the future of Florida’s ecosystems.”

How to go to

Fly into Miami International Airport, then lease a automobile for the hour-and-forty-five-minute drive to Flamingo. At the doorway of Everglades National Park, you’ll must pay a price of $35. Rates at Flamingo Lodge vary from about $150 to $400 per night time, relying on the season and kind of room. It’s open year-round, however the most well-liked time to go to is between November and April, when temperatures are decrease, mosquitoes are fewer, and wildlife is very plentiful.