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Perhaps the best part about visiting the Florida keys is enjoying nature. This is a great place to experience life. You can see all sorts of wildlife, both land-based and aquatic animals, as well as many different kinds of plants, flowers, and trees. You will surely want to experience as much of it as you can. Here is a list of some of the different parks in the Florida Keys that you won't want to miss.
• Lignumvitae Key. This park is actually an island. And you can't get their by car or by plane. You must take a boat there. It's owned by a Miami pharmacist who bought the island as a weekend retreat. But it's a great place to experience the plants and wildlife that call the key home. It's a haven to all kinds of flowers and plants such as the strangler fig and the lignumvitae. To get to the island you need to take a boat from the Upper Matecumbe Key.
• National Key Deer Refuge. Miniature deer can be seen here year round. There are only a few hundred of them, and they only stand about two feet tall. You can take a tour to go deer watching here at the ranger's headquarters on Big Pine Key.
• Indian Key Historic Site. This is another park that you can't get to by car or plane. The island is actually a farm for tropical plants and fruits that are grown on an experimental basis. The Seminole Indians destroyed the plants in the early 1800s, but today the original plant farm plants grow wild there. To get there, you need to access the boat landing on Upper Matecumbe Key.
• San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve. This is a great place to go scuba diving. If you're an experienced scuba diver, you can experience the underwater remains of the ship San Pedro, which sank here when a hurricane hit the region in 1733. You can only reach the preserve by boat just south of Indian Key.
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