Pelicans work the Flamingo marina basin at the very end of the Everglades park road, diving between the boats that come in off Florida Bay. The rig is parked an easy stroll back in the campground. Getting there from the Homestead entrance is the first afternoon of the trip, sawgrass flat to the horizon on both sides and almost nothing tall enough to block the sky. With the kitchen and the bathroom along, nobody has to drive back out to town for dinner, and the motorhome can stay put for the week while the days go to the bay.
Flamingo's T-Loop is the part of the campground a family rig wants, with 41 electric hookup sites where the air conditioning can run through a hot afternoon. The campground also has two dump stations, so a parked week doesn't need a run back to Homestead to empty the tanks. That electric matters most in summer, and since hurricane season covers the same months, a rig at the end of the road wants a weather plan.
The Park Service calls November through April the busy season and strongly recommends reservations, so in winter lock the T-Loop site first and choose the motorhome after. If it's just the two of you, a Florida campervan is the smaller fit for the same road and the same loop.
Long Pine Key, back near the entrance in the pines, is the dry fallback, first-come, first-served and without hookups. The lighter version of this trip, with both campgrounds and the Anhinga Trail morning, is written up in Miami's smaller-rig guide, along with Biscayne National Park. Biscayne is nearly all bay and reef east of town, a boat day with the rig left behind. For a family flying into Miami, Big Cypress on the Tamiami Trail is the other Everglades trip, run from the Miami side.
Homestead and Florida City, the last mainland night before the Keys
Heading south instead, a night in Homestead means the first morning of the Keys trip starts with the water rather than Miami traffic. In town, the Boardwalk RV Resort pitches itself to exactly that trip and books through its own online reservations. In the morning US-1 runs south through Florida City under the palms, past the last big grocery run before the islands, so that's where the fridge gets filled for the week.
Key Largo is the first stop past Florida City, and the parks from there down to Key West are on the Florida Keys RV guide.
Race weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway
On race weekend the whole oval spreads out below the grandstand, and the engine noise carries across the flats of south Miami-Dade. A motorhome makes an easy base for it, with a kitchen, a cold drink between sessions, a bathroom of your own, and air conditioning to come back to.
Race weekend lands in the same winter months as Flamingo's busy season, so the speedway and the park compete for the same motorhomes and the same pads around Homestead. Get the race date from the speedway first, then book the site and the rig together, and if the family wants Flamingo on the same trip, reserve both pads in one sitting.