About this permit
Everglades requires a wilderness permit for every overnight in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness, except when you sleep aboard your own boat. Campsites come in three kinds: chickees, which are 10 by 12 foot roofed platforms built over water and hold a maximum of 6 people or one group; ground sites on mounds of earth a few feet above the mangroves, which can take multiple parties; and beach sites on the coast, the only place in the wilderness where a campfire is legal.
One permit covers multiple consecutive nights for a single $21 reservation fee, so select every night and campsite before you pay. Reservations open at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on a rolling 90 day window. From November 1 through April 30 campsite specific night limits are in effect.
The route
The 99-mile Wilderness Waterway connects Flamingo at the south end of the park to Everglades City at the north. Most people allow at least eight days and cover 8 to 12 miles daily, because the current and the wind decide your pace more than your arms do.
Heading north from Flamingo you work through the interior bays and rivers, camping on chickees at Hell's Bay, Lane Bay and Joe River. The middle stretch runs through the Shark and Broad River country where the ground sites appear, mounds of earth a few feet above the mangroves.
The Gulf Coast end drops you into the Ten Thousand Islands, where the beach sites are. Beach sites are the only campsites in the wilderness where a fire is legal, and it has to be built below the high-tide line. Many people skip the through-trip and paddle a three or four night loop from either end instead.
Why it matters
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness is the largest designated wilderness east of the Rockies, and the only practical way through it is by boat. The chickee platforms exist because there is nowhere dry to pitch a tent. Nothing else in the national park system asks you to plan around tide tables rather than elevation.
The feeling
You paddle for six hours through mangrove tunnels barely wider than the boat and then the world opens into a bay with a wooden platform standing in it. There is a roof, a portable toilet, and no ground. The sun goes down enormous and orange, the mosquitoes arrive on cue, and then the stars come out over water on all sides.
