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Trail ride at Westgate River Ranch Resort Credit: Seth Kubersky<\/p>\nTrail ride at Westgate River Ranch Resort Credit: Seth Kubersky<\/p>\n
When everything in your social media-mediated bubble looks depressingly like an imploding dumpster fire, it\u2019s probably long past time to touch some grass, literally and figuratively. So when I was recently invited to take a break from my usual high-tech adventures and explore two attractions that are moving forward by preserving precious pieces of Central Florida\u2019s pre-Disney past, I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n
Gatorland has been in business since 1949, but they\u2019d never had a viral superstar like Jawlene \u2014 the world-famous jawless gator I \u201cinterviewed\u201d in early 2024, who is still happily homed at the park \u2014 unless you count Savannah Boan, the radio personality turned crocodilian enrichment coordinator who is the international ambassador for Gatorland Global. Boan met me early last month for a morning stroll through the park before it opened for the day to the public, not long after she returned from an International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference in Morocco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to sit among some of the most brilliant minds that work with crocodilians all over the world, and get information from them, and listen to what they\u2019re talking about, and what their issues are in different areas of the world, is really fascinating to me,\u201d says Boan, who departed the day after our interview for Honduras, and will soon head to Australia and East Timor.<\/p>\n
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Brandon Fisher and Savannah Boan of Gatorland Credit: Seth Kubersky<\/p>\n
We soon reached Gatorland\u2019s recently opened Guzzling Gator Waterin\u2019 Hole, the park\u2019s newest addition. The open-air bar serves craft beers \u2014 including Grinnin\u2019 Gator lager, custom-brewed by Crooked Can \u2014 with a view of the lagoon that zip-liners scream over. From the cartoon marquee to the satirical ads on the walls, the park\u2019s first-ever dedicated bar was decorated by Dan Carro, the creative director behind their exceptional seasonal events. But it was a bit early to have beer for breakfast, so after a quick sip we were off to our true destination \u2014 the Swamp Walk.<\/p>\n
Head as far as you can from Gatorland\u2019s front entrance, past the enclosure housing \u201cPops\u201d (a septuagenarian gator who starred in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and you\u2019ll arrive at the park\u2019s hidden treasure. Since 1978, the Swamp Walk has let visitors traverse 2,000 feet of scenic boardwalk inches above the soggy wetlands, and witness a 150-acre slice of nearly pristine wilderness that was once owned by Tupperware and which has miraculously survived encroaching urbanization, despite lying mere yards from Orange Blossom Trail. Gatorland recently partnered with Conservation Florida, a nonprofit land conservancy, and added updated ecological information to signage throughout the Swamp Walk, which has fully reopened after restoration.<\/p>\n
On our way out, we walked through the breeding marsh and were greeted by its grunting inhabitants, many of whom would have been destroyed if not rehomed to Gatorland. \u201cEvery single one of their needs are met here, so they\u2019re living the sweet life compared to their brothers and sisters that are out there in the wild,\u201d says Boan, \u201cThey were living peacefully, then all of a sudden an apartment complex is built around their home, and then they\u2019re the nuisance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you want to take a trip even further into Old Florida, follow the Kissimmee River (or at least the Florida Turnpike) about 90 minutes south, where the Westgate River Ranch Resort and Rodeo allows you to live out all your Wild West cowboy fantasies, minus the dysentery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My childhood camping experiences all involved failing to sleep inside a sweltering tent, so I was pleasantly unprepared for the \u201cConestoga wagon\u201d Westgate hosted me in, which resembled an Oregon Trail relic on the outside, but was a fully equipped (and more importantly, fully air-conditioned) luxury suite for six on the inside. That\u2019s just one of the faux-rustic glamping options available across the 1,700-acre estate \u2014 billed as the largest dude ranch east of the Mississippi \u2014 which also include luxe \u201ctepees\u201d and furnished tents, along with cabins and cottages.<\/p>\n
As comfy as my accommodations were, I spent little time inside across my three-night visit, thanks to a full slate of outdoor activities. I rode horseback for the first time in years, traversing a forest trail atop a gentle gelding through a ghostly graveyard of retired saddles; and I fired a shotgun for the first time in decades, decisively demonstrating that hundreds of hours of experience headshotting zombies in virtual reality is useless when trying to trap-shoot flying clay discs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Rodeo at Westgate River Ranch Resort Credit: Seth Kubersky<\/p>\n
The entertainment highlight was Saturday night\u2019s rain-or-shine rodeo, the longest-running of its kind in the country, which draws a diverse and demonstrative audience to River Ranch every weekend. I could have done with less anticlimactic bull-riding and bronco-breaking, but the majority-female trick riders outshone any I\u2019ve seen since Ringling Bros. retired their animal acts. Equine admirers should also not miss the nightly \u201crunning of the horses\u201d between their barn and pasture, which hilariously proves there is something harder to herd than cats.<\/p>\n
Torrential rains during our visit couldn\u2019t dampen my relief at disconnecting from the grid, and I wish that River Ranch \u2014 which was built in the 1960s and bought by Westgate Resorts in 2001 \u2014 would lean even harder into its history. I\u2019m hoping the upcoming expansion of their River Country water park adds shade and landscaping like its Disney namesake; and although I\u2019m obsessed with their Smokehouse\u2019s BBQ burnt ends and love that none of the ranch\u2019s animals (many of whom are rescues) get eaten, I think their main restaurant should ditch the conventional chophouse menu in favor of authentic Florida Cracker grub like boar, gator tail, frog legs and swamp cabbage.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it was the unscripted, unglamorous moments that made my weekend at River Ranch most memorable. The tabletop \u201cS\u2019mores & Pours\u201d tasting with fancy fondue fixings and top-shelf bourbon was perfectly fine; but roasting marshmallows on the fire pit behind our wagon, with \u201cMeatball\u201d the resident gator bellowing in the background, was fully a five-star experience. For a grand finale as we departed, the ranch\u2019s roaming bison herd \u2014 which is being rehabilitated after generations of insufficient genetic diversity \u2014 paused behind fencing mere feet away from me, made deep soulful eye-contact \u2026 and loudly evacuated their bowels en masse. If that isn\u2019t communing with nature, I don\u2019t know what is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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