Wooten's Everglades Airboat Tours

The elder statesman of Everglades airboat outfits on the Tamiami Trail. Raymond Wooten started giving rides in 1953 after tourists driving US-41 stopped, watched him run his own airboat, and asked to pay for a turn — the first commercial airboat operation in Southwest Florida. The company passed to his son Gene in the 1990s and is now run by the Patel family, who kept the name and the sprawl: airboats across the sawgrass, swamp buggies through the cypress hammock, and an on-site alligator and wildlife sanctuary with a live gator show. Not the quiet Everglades — the working, roadside, mid-century American one.

What to order

Go with the Original Combo (airboat + swamp buggy + alligator park, from about $62) — book online for $8 off. Grassland airboat runs 30 minutes; combo pushes 110 minutes total. Morning is coolest and least crowded.

Hours

Daily 9a–5p · last airboat 4:30p