babcock ranch swamp tours

Your browser is not supported for this experience. We recommend using Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari.

Find Your Favorite Beach

Atlantic Coast

Beach Camping

Family-Friendly

Places to stay.

Campgrounds

Travel Ideas

Accessible Travel

Eco-Friendly Travel

African American Heritage Travel

More Travel Ideas

Popular links.

Florida Webcams

Toll Roads Info

Travel Guides

Babcock Ranch Eco Tours

• 8000 S.R. 31 Punta Gorda, FL 33982
• (941) 637-0551

May we recommend

Live webcams, #myfortmyers moments, plan your trip, digital visitor guide, babcock eco tours.

Offering a 90 minute Swamp Buggy tour through the 90,000 acre Babcock Ranch and Telegraph Cypress Swamp. View alligators, panthers, birds, deer, turkey, a herd of historic Florida Cracker cattle and more. Get back to nature and enjoy a true wilderness adventure!

26.799407, -81.760363

8000 S.R. 31 Punta Gorda , FL 33982 United States

Key Features

Things to Do

Attractions

Historic Attraction

Beaches, Parks & Nature

Agri-Tourism

Outdoor Activities & Sports

Hiking/Nature Trails

Tours & Transportation

Sightseeing Tours

Customized Tours

Guided Tours

Suitable for Ages

Disabled traveler information.

Handicapped Parking, Ramps

Birding, Hiking Trails Nearby, Natural Wildlife Viewing

Agri-Tourism, Nature Preserve, Protected Species Habitat, Sightseeing Tours, Wildlife Management Area, Museum Historical, Hiking/Nature Trails, Historic Attraction, Museum

Group Discount, Military Discount, Other Discount, Senior Citizen Discount

Tour Information

Customized Tours, Guided Tours

Tour Duration

Tour schedule.

by reservation

Newsletter Sign Up

• Florida Road Map
• County Road Maps
• City Street Maps
• East-West Road Trip Maps
• North-South Road Trip Maps
• Vintage Florida Maps
• Towns and Cities
• Towns at the End of the Road
• Florida Ghost Towns
• Day Trips By Theme of Interest
• Day Trips by Destination Location
• Gainesville within 100 miles
• Jacksonville within 100 miles
• Miami, South Florida, and Keys within 100 miles
• Orlando within 100 miles
• Pensacola within 100 miles
• Tallahassee within 100 miles
• Tampa within 100 miles
• The Villages within 100 miles
• Statewide Road Trips
• Northwest Florida Road Trips
• North Central Florida Road Trips
• Northeast Florida Road Trips
• Central East Florida Road Trips
• Central Florida Road Trips
• Central West Florida Road Trips
• Southwest Florida Road Trips
• Southeast Florida Road Trips
• River Road Trips
• Florida Keys
• Attractions
• Florida State Parks
• Motels, Inns, Hotels
• Florida Statewide Restaurants
• Florida Cracker Restaurants
• Community Theater
• Florida Crackers
• Florida Nostalgia
• Florida History
• Lost Attractions
• Florida Facts
• Tourist Attractions
• Babcock Ranch Eco Tours

BABCOCK RANCH ECO TOURS

8000 State Road 31 Punta Gorda, FL 33982 1-800-500-5583

By   Mike Miller   Updated November 16, 2023

Babcock Ranch Eco Tours was known for many years as Babcock Wilderness Adventures. 

It is one of the most unusual of Florida tourist attractions. It takes place on a 92,000 acre working ranch in the heart of Old Florida.

Babcock Ranch is a working Florida ranch primarily engaged in raising beef cattle. The ranch also has large farming and mining operations.

The Babcock family of Pittsburgh owned the Babcock Lumber Company. E. V. Babcock came to southwest Florida in 1912 to hunt and fish. 

He liked the place so well he bought 100,000 acres of worked out turpentine pine woods and added to that acreage over the years.

When most of the timber was logged out, Babcock converted the acreage to a cattle ranch.

When his son, Fred, was 14 he started coming to Charlotte County in the summer months to learn the cattle business.  In the winters he worked in the family sawmill near Pittsburgh.

Fred liked this lifestyle so much, he continued it the rest of his life - except that he wisely reversed the seasonal visits.  He became one of the early snowbirds.

The ranch sprawls across Lee County and Charlotte County, and is northwest of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda.

Babcock Wilderness Adventures is one of the last places in Florida where you may see the elusive Florida panther in its natural habitat.

It is one of the possible surprises that has made this one of the most unusual Florida tourist attractions.

You will also see the tough cows and bulls unique to the state known as Florida Cracker cattle.

Babcock Wilderness Adventures offers adventure-seeking visitors 90-minute Swamp Buggy Tours and a lot more. 

It takes about 2 1/2 hours to see everything on your Babcock Wilderness Adventures tour.

The specially built shaded buggies carry you safely through native piney flatwoods, oak hammocks, a fresh water marsh and a cypress swamp.

All told, you will see four different Florida ecosystems on your Babcock Wilderness Adventures tour. 

An experienced tour guide tells you all about the wildlife and explains the ranch activities and ranch history as well.

You will probably run into wild alligators and see hundreds of native birds on this tour. 

The ranch is also home to white tailed deer, wild turkeys, American Eagles and Red Shouldered Hawks.

It is as close to nature as you can possibly be in Florida.

There is also a museum featuring Florida history, ranch operations, and natural history artifacts.

There is even a movie set used in the  Sean Connery film "Just Cause".

HAVE A PICNIC OR LUNCH AT BABCOCK RANCH

The gift shop has many items related to the ranch, the wilderness tour and Florida wildlife.

You can also have a picnic at Babcock Ranch. You can bring your own picnic basket or enjoy a lunch of BBQ pork sandwiches, hot dogs and finger foods in the Gator Shack Restaurant.

All tours are by reservation only, so it's best to call them before going. Please call 1-800-500-5583 for tour times or visit:

Babcock Ranch Ecotour Website.

THE SUSTAINABLE CITY OF BABCOCK RANCH

The Babcock Ranch was sold several years ago to Kitson & Partners, a development company. The company kept the operation of Babcock Ranch Eco Tours open to the public.

The Kitson group has developed a brand new city appropriately named Babcock Ranch. They donated all but 17,000 acres of the ranch to the state.

The remaining acreage is being used to create a futuristic, sustainable, environmentally sensitive community.  Construction on this new city began in 2015 and many people are living there today.

It is the first city almost any place on earth to use the sun for almost all of its energy needs. Who knows, this modern city could also end up being one of the popular Florida tourist attractions of tomorrow.

Babcock Ranch (the new City) has a state-of-the-art $ 300 million Florida Solar Power plant. The city consumes less power than the plant produces.

Most of the land adjacent to the new city is being preserved in its natural condition.

Learn all about the new sustainable City of Babcock Ranch

From the North:

I-75 to Exit 164 to Highway 17. Head North one mile to State Road 74. Then go East 15 miles to State Road 31.Then go South.

Look for Tour Entrance 6 miles on left

From the South:

I-75 to Exit 143. Head East on Route 78 to State Road 31.Then go North.

Look for Tour Entrance 9 miles on right.

Our Facebook page has more than 130,800  followers who love off the beaten path Florida: towns, tourist attractions, maps, lodging, food, festivals, scenic road trips, day trips, history, culture, nostalgia, and more.   

SHARE ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

By Mike Miller, Copyright 2009-2024 Florida-Back-Roads-Travel.com

Privacy Policy

Florida Back Roads Travel is not affiliated with or endorsed by Backroads, a California-based tour operator which arranges and conducts travel programs throughout the world.

Recent Articles

Florida Citrus Tower: Early Attraction Soars Above the Rest

Sep 26, 24 10:04 AM

• Mancation Vacations
• Bachelor Party Ideas
• Father & Son Trips
• Lads Holiday Ideas
• Romantic Getaways
• Guys Weekend Getaways
• Work With Us

Natural Florida Up Close on a Babcock Ranch Eco Tour

I visit Florida at least a couple times per year and we generally spend time enjoying the sand and water on the edges of the state. Seldom do we get to explore the swamps and murky water where the wild things roam. It's a shame really, Florida is mostly swamp and Forrest land that is filled with wild animals. That land played an essential role in the creating of the state that we know today. From alligators to hogs brought by the Spanish to cows brought by the Crackers there's way more to Florida's rich history and natural beauty than just it's spectacular beaches. We got a chance to explore some of this with Babcock Ranch Eco Tours and their one-of-a-kind "swamp buggy" ...

Our journey through the swamp unexpectedly began with one of the best lunches I've ever had on a fam trip. It wasn't fancy but it authentic. You can't get much better than southern comfort food including sides that depend on what the cook felt like making that morning.

This is especially true if you are dining inside a shack surrounded by acres of swamp land where the fried gator you are enjoying might actually have been living a few hours or days earlier.

After our lunch, we headed out to meet our guide and her Babcock Ranch "Swamp Buggy", a converted school bus painted khaki and with side windows removed. While I'd never have considered a bus like this something to ford streams and muddy roads - I was impressed.

Along the tour, guests learn about the history of the land from the origin of Babcock Ranch in 1914 as part of Edward Babcock's timber empire to create pitch used to ward off termites in the diamond mines of South Africa. In 2006, 80% the 91,000-acre ranch was sold to the State of Florida who agreed to preserve the 73,000 acres of land as a mixture of ranching and eco tours to help Floridians and guests better understand the ecosystem here.

The 90-minute Babcock Ranch Eco Tour travels through the working cattle ranch, gator filled swamp lands, through forests, and open prairie land. We were thrilled to see a wide range of wild animals including alligators, owls, wild turkeys, deer, horses, cattle, and many wild birds. 

It was one of the most fun excursions that I've done in a long while and a must for anyone who loves nature, history, or just taking photos.

Photos From Our Babcock Ranch "Swamp Buggy" Eco Tour

{lightgallery type=local path=images/stories/babcock-ranch-eco-tour/photo-gallery previewWidth=160}Babcock Ranch Eco Tour, Punta Gorda Florida Photo Gallery{/lightgallery}