FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center
Palm Beach County · South Florida & the Keys
Twenty acres of barrier island run jointly by the city, the park district and Florida Atlantic University, free to enter.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center was founded in 1984 and occupies twenty acres of protected barrier island in Boca Raton. It is run as a cooperative between three bodies at once, the City of Boca Raton, the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District and Florida Atlantic University, and the university's part in it is real work rather than a name on a sign: FAU runs sea turtle behavior, physiology and ecology research on the site. There is a boardwalk trail, outdoor marine aquariums, a butterfly garden, resident sea turtles and an observation tower called Jacob's Outlook, and general admission is free because city and park district taxpayers fund it. The parking lot is small and reserved for nature center visitors, with no beach parking permitted, so anyone heading for the sand uses the metered Red Reef West lot at the south end of the boardwalk. Red Reef Park surrounds the center, and the reef there lies close enough inshore to snorkel out to from the beach rather than needing a boat
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