
Biscayne National Park
Vast open-water preserve of coral reefs, mangrove shoreline, and dozens of historic shipwrecks.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Biscayne National Park follows Lancelot Jones, born on a sailboat in the bay in 1898 to a formerly enslaved father who had bought a nearby island the year before, and the resort developers who bulldozed a six-lane-wide scar down Elliott Key in the late 1960s hoping to build high-rises here. You'll hear how Jones, then nearly seventy, refused every offer from those developers and instead struck his own deal with the National Park Service. The guide follows him into his final decades on Porgy Key, fishing and watching birds until the day before Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Oleta River State Park
Mangrove-fringed urban wilderness on Biscayne Bay, built from a failed world's fair site.
Stiltsville
Cluster of wood houses on pilings above open water, survivors of a wild prohibition-era bay community.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center
Oceanfront environmental learning center with nature trails, seagrass programs, and a gallery on a barrier island.
Matheson Hammock Park & Marina
Saltwater atoll pool carved from limestone by Depression-era crews, tide-fed and ringed by palm-shaded walkways.
The Barnacle Historic State Park
Octagonal-roofed pioneer bungalow raised on pilings above a bayfront homestead, later lifted to add a hidden ground floor.
The Kampong, National Tropical Botanical Garden
Tropical garden estate once home to a pioneering plant explorer, filled with exotic species.