Grassy Waters Preserve: The Everglades Nobody Visits

23 square miles of subtropical wetland sitting directly west of West Palm Beach's subdivisions. It supplies the city's drinking water and is simultaneously one of the most beautiful natural areas in South Florida that almost nobody bothers with. Main entrance off Northlake Boulevard.

The boardwalk trails look exactly like the Everglades because they essentially are — sawgrass prairies, cypress domes, lily pads, bald cypress draped in bromeliads. Alligators sun on the banks with the posture of apex predators who have nowhere better to be. The kayak trails are the real experience — paddle through cypress-lined channels so narrow the branches close overhead, no sound but your paddle and the splash of a fish and the distant call of a limpkin, which sounds like crying and is actually just a bird named for the way it walks.

December through April — dry season, concentrated wildlife, fewer mosquitoes. Summer is lush but brutal and the bugs are not a joke. Free admission, free parking. The honest privilege of walking the ecosystem South Florida was before anyone drained it for golf.