Thanks, Ann, for contacting the park and starting us on a search for alternative locations.
It will be a tall order to get close to what I imagine is the Flamingo mix of paddling, camping options, and lodging, but these state parks in the southwest Florida parks region might be close: Collier-Seminole, not too close to lodges, but not unreasonably far from Naples area and very mangrovey; and, Myakka River, not far from Sarasota and not in the Everglades. We checked out Collier-Seminole and found the RV sites to be smallish for our size 5th wheel. The day trip options for paddling from the boat launch appear to be quite limited, but we did not paddle there. We are not familiar with Myakka River SP at all. No dogs are allowed there, and we travel with our resident manager, Binky the opinionated Yorkie.
They can be checked out at:
http://www.floridastateparks.org/CampCabinLodge.cfm. This link is to the accommodations page for all parks and is nicely sorted by type of camping. Each state park has a good write-up and map. The whole site is very well done.
It will be a nice trick to find a southern Florida State Park that has much room left at the time we would need, I fear. I will continue to contribute on this, but am really new to Florida, so I hope that others with experience will contribute to this. What about looking farther north in Florida? Personally, I'd rather paddle with manatees than pythons.
Peg and I will be coming to the Flotilla from Port Aransas, Texas, where there is plenty of accommodations choice and lots of salt water paddling, but it is often cool and windy when we are there in December and January. It could be a good place for a Folbot event a little later in the year.
? Tell you what -- in view of the circumstances, I'll forego my usual requirement that there be a Hershey's factory nearby!
