Are Airboat Tours Available in the Okefenokee Swamp?
An overcrowded airboat in South Florida (photo by chensiyuan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Airboat tours are a popular choice for visitors to the Florida Everglades and the swamps of Louisiana. Zipping around at high speeds, seeing as much landscape as possible… and scaring off and impacting wildlife behavior with a huge amount of noise pollution. As a small-boat ecotour operator and wilderness guide in Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, I have gotten asked many times over the years if I offer airboat tours in the Land of the Trembling Earth. The answer is always no, and I explain why: airboat tours are not allowed at all in Okefenokee NWR! The Refuge staff themselves are authorized to use airboats for things like search and rescue missions, but private operators and commercial businesses are not allowed to use them. But why?
Well, Okefenokee is not only a National Wildlife Refuge (operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). This amazing wetland also has the very important Federal designation of National Wilderness Area. A National Wilderness Area is a highly protected area of wild land, and a part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, which protects over 111.7 million acres of public land. National Wilderness Areas can be part of National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, National Parks, or public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Most of Okefenokee Swamp is protected as a National Wildlife Refuge, and most of the Refuge is further protected as a Wilderness Area, meaning that its WILDNESS is as preserved as possible.
“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”
- Proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson upon his signing of The Wilderness Act, September 3rd, 1964
What that means for visitors is that there are certain regulations in place inside the Refuge and Wilderness Area. Airboats are not allowed due to their environmental impact with repeated use, such as the kind of tours that take place in other swampy areas of the US. Besides being very loud and impactful to birds and other wildlife, they are also more dangerous for visitors. Several decades ago, there were in fact airboat tours given by a private operator in Okefenokee near Kingfisher Landing, when that part of the Swamp was still family owned. Eventually their land became part of the Federally protected Refuge. While motorized boats are not allowed in many other Wilderness Areas, Okefenokee allows the use of motors, as long as they are under 10 horsepower. Boats are allowed on around 70 of the 120 miles in the wilderness trail system.
A family on a private Okefenokee & Satilla Expeditions guided boat tour on the west side of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
Our local Naturalist-guided Okefenokee boat tours are conducted with a 16 foot long flat-bottomed jon boat, with a modern outboard motor that is very quiet at idle and low speeds (no high speed tours in Okefenokee!), with just a few guests on board for the best experience in wilderness immersion. For ultimate quiet, we turn the motor off, or switch to an electric trolling motor to move along silently. Imagine quietly gliding along the water trails of Okefenokee, learning about the swamp’s old stories, flora, fauna, and history from your locally-born and raised Naturalist guide, as you sit comfortably on a boat that has little impact on the amazing creatures and plant life of this vast, wild wetland. Snacks, drinks, bug spray, sun screen, and digital photos of your adventure are included with every tour. We offer 2, 3, and 4 hour daytime tours, and a 2 hour sunset tour.
Fall and winter are coming, and are perfect times for your personalized, private small-group boat tour in the Okefenokee Swamp with Okefenokee & Satilla Expeditions LLC. You can request the best swamp boat tour you’ll ever experience at okefenokee-satilla.com/tourrequests!
