GO CAMP IN THE DRY TORTUGAS! It’s the most remote National Park in the continental United States – 70 miles West of Key West! It’s closer to Havanna, Cuba than to Miami! There are only 8 campsites, so you’ll feel like it’s your own private island.

Fort Jefferson was built after the War of 1812 to provide a strategic fortification for protecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits. It was designed to hold over 420 guns and is the largest brick structure in North and South America. The fort held a peak of about 1,700 people during the Civil War, but by the late 1800’s it was no longer viable due to the incredible costs of maintaining it. Also there were rampant Yellow Fever outbreaks and a bunch of people died.

You can wander around the fort to your heart’s content, and there are virtually no safety railings, barricades, or other stupid safety features that you see at other National Parks. Let the problem take care of itself, I say.

The Magnificent Frigatebird has a wingspan of 7 feet but only weighs 3 pounds, making it the bird with the best wing-to-weight ratio in the world. The Dry Tortugas is the only known nesting site for these birds in the United States.

The coolest thing about Frigatebirds? They can fly for 10 days straight without landing. They sleep while flying by shutting down one half of its brain at a time while the other half flies. Amazing.

Seaplanes occasionally land at Dry Tortugas – for people that don’t want to take the ferry. This one was leaving right at sunset.

A Brown Pelican photobombed my sunset picture.

Again, go to the Dry Tortugas and spend the night. I cannot overstate this enough.

There is a slight rat problem on the island (by slight, I mean massive). These are the ingenious rat traps that the park rangers came up with. They kill the rats but not the hermit crabs.

Hermit Crabs are interesting. I found myself just sitting and watching them skitter about through camp. They’re everywhere on Dry Tortugas.

Our campsite was nestled under one of the few trees on the island – a welcome break from the sun.

The beaches on Dry Tortugas are full of broken coral and cool rocks. Abbey the geologist was quite at home.

The beaches here haven’t been pilfered of their treasures. Thousands of Conch Shells, Sand Dollars, Sea Biscuits, Brain Coral, etc litter the beach. If this place wasn’t so remote none of this would be here, because people are jerks.

In summary – you need to go camp at the Dry Tortugas. It was one of our favorite camping trips to date.

Cheers!