Okefenokee Swamp Park - Waycross, Georgia

Okefenokee Swamp Park - Waycross, Georgia

The Wonderworld of Okefenokee is a significant part of America’s heritage, a beautifully preserved segment of what was here when America began. Headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Mary’s Rivers, Okefenokee is a National Wildlife Refuge and an impressive recent addition to the National Wilderness System. Okefenokee Swamp Park is a convenient point of entry and a magnificent show-window for this natural wonderland. The park lily-decked water trails, with their miraculously reflective waters mirroring overhanging beauty, lead to all points in this vast wilderness of islands, lakes, jungles, forest and prairies.
 
Okefenokee Swamp Park is a rare experience for every member of the family. Extravagantly beautiful, the swamp, nearly a half million acres, carries you back into the world’s pre-history. Interpretive exhibits, lectures, wildlife shows, boat tours on original Indian Waterways, wilderness walkways, Pioneer Island, native animals in their own habitat, all combine to weave a spell of pioneer American life. You witness in real life the place where primitive man ruled the wilds, where Indians hunted and fished, where early settlers sought peace and communed with nature. You see, for real, how nature’s balance assures the perpetuation of the flora and fauna and the swamp itself. Since accessibility has been provided through Okefenokee Swamp Park, providing regulated visitation, the “Land of Trembling Earth” has become one of the most acclaimed wilderness areas in the United States. It has been the locale of many Hollywood motion pictures, and has been featured on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, the Pogo comic strip, in documentary and fictional books, and in song and art. Its glory is its pristine beauty, making it a photographer’s dream. The Okefenokee Swamp Park, a non-profit development operating under a long-term lease is not supported by federal or state funds. The park makes this awesome and mysterious swampland accessible to you where, for many generations, only stouthearted adventurers and trappers dared to go. The park is easy to reach from anywhere in the South, located 8 miles south of Waycross, Georgia on highway US 1/23. There are no overnight accommodations in the park, a wildlife sanctuary, but admirable facilities are available in the Waycross area, including camping facilities at nearby Laura S. Walker State Park. An admission charge goes towards operating and developing the park.