CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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National Park Service · Big Cypress National Preserve · FL

Pink Jeep

3Heads up2 park alerts · 1 fire 22 mi away
Wildfire
Newman Dr fire · 22 mi away · 1,733 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 6, 2026
Information
ORV Permits Sold Online Starting May 1st, 2026 ORV permits will only be able to be purchased online. Please visit the link to learn more.
Information
Park Passes Park passes, including: America the Beautiful, Veteran, Lifetime, etc., are UNAVAILABLE for purchase/pickup within Big Cypress. Shark Valley Visitor Center (Everglades) is the closest location to Big Cypress for purchase.
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 6, 2026
Alerts: National Park Service alerts API · Oct 17, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: all 9 sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
A night
$10From, per site
Sites
99 of them walk-up
Season
August 15 – April 15Open August 15 through April 15, across the new year
10 ftElevation
3,003 ftWater · an unnamed pondOcean · 25.0 mi · to the Gulf of Mexico
9.2 miSE of Ave Maria, FL
9Walk-up sites
27%Tree cover
Open August 15 through April 15, across the new yearToday

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

This is a primitive campground, containing nine campsites. No water. Vault toilets are available. Pink Jeep can be accessed by off-road vehicle, hiking or biking. Backcountry permits are required for all, off-road vehicle permits are required for off-road vehicles.

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets - seasonal
Drinking water
None, bring your own
Source: National Park Service and agency records

Around the campground

Night sky · 25th darkest of 60 in FL
Bortle 4
Source: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate · Sep 8, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $10 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
A night$10Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
A weekend$20DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
Runs itNational Park Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceNational Park Service
A night, from$10
tent site fee$10
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$10
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$20

Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($10), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.

How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the National Park Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate26.21633, -81.29514
The phone239-695-4111

Where it is

Source: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Tonight74°Chance Showers And Thunderstorms36% rain
Saturday85°Chance Showers And Thunderstorms then Showers And Thunderstorms Likely65% rain
Saturday Night69°Showers And Thunderstorms Likely72% rain
Sunday81°Mostly Sunny11% rain

NWS forecast for Ave Maria, FL

Source: National Weather Service, MFL forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 69°F, day 87°F.

100°40°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: IMMOKALEE, FL (USC00084210), 19 miles away and 25 ft higher
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

developing

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026

Who answers for this land

Mario Diaz-Balart, official portrait

Pink Jeep is in Florida’s 26th congressional district. Its representative, Mario Diaz-Balart (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Season: National Park Service API · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.58 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 60 rated federal campgrounds in Florida · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Park Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026