I am sure, you can imagine, that it is something very exciting for a biologist to finally visit the famous and important Everglades, The River of Grass.

So it was also for me a phantastic experience, when I came to South Florida for the first time and began to explore all the different eco-systems , to find out and to understand, how this unique place and its wildlife exist.

And then it happened, as it does to so many, that these quiet, peaceful Everglades started to enchant me.

With every little bit of understanding you begin to love the Everglades - and you begin to enjoy to give a little bit of this to every visitor and to share the fascination, but also the worries about Everglades' health and future.

Shortly after my first longer stay in Florida because of research reasons, my family and I moved to Miami. My husband had become the new pastor of the German congregation in Miami.

We/I spent most of our free time sightseeing, hiking and paddling here in South Florida and especially the Everglades National Park.

A very special experience was the 10 day canoe trip from Flamingo in the South of the National Park to the Gulf Coast Visitor Center at the West end of the Park: the famous Wilderness Waterway.  In case anybody has questions about the Wilderness Waterway, I always love to answer them and to share this impressive experience.

As a natural result of all my Everglades activities, I began to volunteer as interpreter at Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park. As such I am intoducing visitors into the possibilities of the Park and give guided tours as part of the Park programm.

After a short time I started a small program in German language, that was a great success right from the beginning, thanks to the many German speaking visitors all year round.

Every Wednesday at 11am, there is a guided walk in German language within the Nationalpark-Program at the famous Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm (East Entrance of Everglades NP).  (Just in the rare case that the  "German Anhinga Amble" cannot take place: you will find the information here on the website !) 

Generally, I work for Dragonfly Expeditions as Guide in South East Florida and I also show to the participants of the adventure-bike-tours of  Backroads, the wonders of  the Everglades Cypress Forests and more.

The last years I was a Wilderness Guide for Tours-in-the-Glades, and led the visitors to the different eco-systems in the Everglades National Park.

With Tours-in-the-Glades there were quite often Tours with only German speaking customers. These tours and the experience with the German speaking program in the National Park showed me, how much the tours in the native language are valued by visitors, as well as how much the understanding of the eco-system and the connection to the Everglades were enhanced.

Because of these experiences and the  plenty of positive feedback from the German speaking visitors (everybody a big Thank You!), our little Family-Business German Tours Everglades LLC has developed and came to life .

Just a little bit about my background before we came to Florida:

In Germany I have studied Biology with Paleontology and Philosophy. Main focus was behaviour, ecology and especially evolution/ systematics.

I have also studied Marine Biology at the University of Wales, GB.

Afterwards, I worked as a scientific assistant at the Philipps University of Marburg, Germany, and travelled for my Masters (German Dipl.) and PhD studies to England, Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, Honduras und the USA.

Later I gathered experiences in sport-, outdoor- und group-travels  during school-, kids-, youth- und family-work .