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Airboats are unlike any other water vehicle you can ride or drive. They are unique to the wetlands, swamps, and Everglades of Florida and neighboring states. You can see airboats in use in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even some parts of Texas.
So, what makes an airboat ride in Miami such an exciting thing? Why would you want to hire an airboat tours company to take you around the Everglades? You’re about to find out!
What Is an Airboat and Why Is It a Big Deal?
An air boat is a unique kind of boat. It looks a lot like a rectangular skiff used to move around lakes and waterways, except that it has a giant vertical fan attached to the back. When the fan is turned on, it acts as the propelling force for the boat to move through water and swampy areas. One feature very unique to these kinds of boats is that they can easily move up and over low obstacles in the water and rarely become trapped in low water areas unless they are heavy-laden with excess weight.
People who live in the wetland areas of Florida use these boats to get around the ever-changing watery landscape of these areas. Rain and flooding quickly changes the rise and fall of water in different parts of the wetlands, making these areas impassable for other watercraft. However, that is not a problem for the air boat!
Most people who live in the swamps and wetlands here will have at least two boats, one speed or rowing boat, and one air boat. Depending on where they need to go and what they need to do, they may use one type of boat over the other. During the year, you can see various privately-owned boats giving tours of the Everglades (which is what we do!).
Going Fast and Taking It Slow
If you take a private tour by air boat, you will find that your driver will zoom around for a bit so you can feel the exhilaration of the speed of the boat. It’s a lot like a speed boat, but the smoothness of the ride makes all the difference. After you get a bit of the wind and water in your face, your tour guide will stop in key locations for you to watch nature around you.
It’s fairly common for guides to stop and point out alligators, deer, water birds, and other animals unique to Florida. You can take pictures, but be sure to keep your limbs inside the boat! Some gators are pretty brazen, swimming right up to the boat, which is why you need to be careful as you take your photos.
A private tour may also include some unique sights, such as abandoned swamp shacks where gator hunters used to come during alligator hunting season. These ghost “towns” of hunting shacks have their own stories to tell, and why they are now abandoned. You may even see boats jammed up on shorelines or tangled in reeds; remnants of bad storms and boaters getting lost in the ‘Glades. As you go along, your guide will take some areas fast and others slow so you can take everything in that is worth seeing.
Sunset Tours
A sunset tour by air boat in Miami is one of the most unique experiences you can ever have. The sun setting on the water while you sit comfortably in an air boat and hear the sounds of nature around you is intoxicating. Your sunset tour guide knows all of the best places to stop and get a great view of the setting sun on the water. You will get some of the best vacation pictures you have ever had on this tour.
Touring the Florida Keys
You could take a long bridge over the water from Florida’s panhandle to the Keys, but you would never see or experience what you could by air boat. Speeding through the marshes and around the nearest Keys, you can see everything you wouldn’t see in your car going over the bridge. You’re closer to the blue tropical waters and the wildlife you would only glimpse from afar on the bridge. To top it off, the boat can stop and let you take photos of things you see; something else you can’t do on the bridge toward the Keys.
Want to See Something in Particular? Just Ask!
Maybe you’ve heard about a rare bird living in the ‘Glades and you are very interested in finding it. Perhaps you want to see a tropical plant you have never seen before. Whatever it is that you are most eager to see, just ask your tour guide. Our guides know exactly what you are talking about and they know the best places and times of year to spot everything you really want to see.
You Make the Tour as Long as You Want
All of the tours start at an hour and increase in half-hour increments up to two hours. You decide how much time you want to be out in Florida’s vast wetlands and how much you want to see. (Only the sunset tour ends at an hour and a half because a setting sun will not last as long as you would want it to.) Choose your time, type of tour and price and book it in advance. On the day of your tour, confirm that the boats are still going out (Florida weather changes so quickly!). Then show up about twenty minutes prior to your departure time to check in and get ready for the tour!
A Word on Migration and Hibernation
An air boat tour is never the same tour twice. Not only does the ebb and flow of waters in the wetlands change from month to month, season to season, and year to year, but animals you see in August you can’t see in December. For example, most people don’t realize that you can only see gators in the warm summer months and late spring. Gators do not do well in colder waters as the temperature changes in fall, and they will submerge to hibernate on the bottoms of rivers and still ponds.
Migratory animals like the Roseate Spoonbill which can only be seen in a Florida winter may only be present during your tour in November through early January. Thousands of migratory water birds and birds of prey winter or summer here, so what you see on a tour in April you will not see again on a tour in September. How’s that for exciting? It’s a different tour every time!
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