Florida adventures with Everglades gators, magical mangroves and epic hikes

WELCOME to Florida’s lesser-seen side – a world so wild it feels like you’re assisting on a David Attenborough documentary.

The Sunshine State has parks bigger than some countries, home to panthers and bobcats, tangled mangroves and secret springs. You just need to know where to look.

Exploring the wild side of Florida is easy when you book with British Airways Holidays. Touch down in Orlando, Tampa or Miami and choose from a range of carefully selected hotels.

Or if you’d like to venture further afield, rent a car and turn your trip into a Florida fly-drive.

Whether you hike, paddle, snorkel or simply sit back and watch, with 175 state parks covering 1,250 square miles, Florida is a choose-your-own-adventure playground.

For a perfect way to cool off in summer, take a deep dive into natural springs – a chain of over 1,000 crystal-clear pools bubbling up from underground.

At Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River, manatees roll and bob in the shallows, the closest you’ll ever come to a real-life sea cow ballet. Farther north, Ginnie Springs is the stuff of dreams for divers – its subterranean caves and mineral-rich waters give it an almost supernatural glow.

If birdwatching sounds like something your nan does, Florida will change your mind. With over 500 species flitting between its wetlands, beaches and forests, this is an ornithologist’s utopia, whether or not you know your storks from your ospreys.

At Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a stretch of protected marshland next to Kennedy Space Center, roseate spoonbills strike Vogue poses, while bald eagles soar overhead.

Down in Everglades National Park, the biggest wilderness east of the Mississippi, the birdlife is even more dramatic. Guided airboats skim across the blackwater to search for vultures smacking their beaks and anhingas spearing fish like avian assassins.

But wildlife-watching in Florida isn’t just about birds. This is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles coexist. If you want to see these prehistoric giants (from a safe distance, of course), there’s Deep Lake in Big Cypress National Preserve near the Everglades.

At Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, a nearly 23,000-acre wetland savannah near Gainesville, spot wild bison grazing and Florida cracker horses descended from 16th-century Spanish breeds.

Out on the coast, the show is just as spectacular – pods of bottlenose dolphins play tag in the surf, and if you’re lucky, you might even catch the fin of a gentle whale shark gliding past.

Hiking trails offer a chance to get up close and personal with Florida’s fantastic fauna. Blackwater River State Forest offers spectacular contrasting views of the river’s bright gleaming white beaches and the dark, tannic water that gives it its name. Look closely though, and you may spot gopher tortoises, great blue herons, wild turkey, white-tailed deer and opossums.

Paddleboarders and kayakers, meanwhile, will find heaven in the Ten Thousand Islands, where the mangrove tunnels are so quiet you can hear fish jumping.

Prefer the saltwater version? Snorkelling off Dry Tortugas National Park, a remote cluster of islands 70 miles west of the Keys, is like drifting through a vast aquarium. The really fun part? The only way in is by seaplane or ferry. If Florida is a theme park, Dry Tortugas is the hidden level most visitors never unlock.

There’s a lot of hidden Florida to see – you just need to follow the sunshine to where the wild things are. You can step off a plane and straight into a world that doesn’t just offer world-class theme parks but also incredible natural beauty. It’s a landscape of green and gold, where nature still calls the shots.

Note: Florida’s animals don’t come looking for trouble, but it pays to remember you’re not top of the food chain there. Seek expert advice and take guided tours wherever possible.

• All British Airways Holidays packages are Atol-protected, keeping you and your money safe.
• All package bookings include flexible payment options, with low deposits.
• All British Airways Holidays packages include a generous baggage allowance, along with a 24 hour dedicated support helpline during your trip.
• British Airways Holidays offers a range of hotel options as well as the opportunity to hire a car with Avis.
• When you book flights and car hire together, all mandatory charges are included, and you’ll benefit from roadside assistance and 24 hour customer support. All hotels and car hire are committed to British Airways’ high safety standards.

To find out more, head to ba.com/florida