Florida Dream: a teen touring camp across Miami, the Everglades and the Keys

A touring programme rather than a course: there are no lessons and no classroom. The group is led in French by a qualified director and leaders, and the route is fixed in advance — Miami, Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys — with a private minibus between the three. Everything is run by the camp team, so nothing on the itinerary has to be booked or paid for locally.

The school offers a special discount - ask us for details. The price covers the return flight from Paris, full board, the full leadership team, accommodation, all travel on the ground, every activity named in the programme, repatriation and personal accident cover, and the administrative follow-up before and after the trip. Personal spending, visa fees where they apply, vaccinations, activities outside the programme, optional cover and the connection from a city other than Paris are not included.

One fixed base for the whole stay, a motel set midway between Miami and Everglades National Park. Rooms sleep two to four, with a private shower and toilet; double beds may have to be shared. There is an outdoor pool in the grounds, a reception area and a dining room the group uses for its own cooking.

Full board, co-managed. Zigotours runs this camp as a colonie cogérée: participants take turns helping the team prepare the meals rather than being served in a canteen. Meals are eaten at the base or packed for days out in the Everglades and the Keys.

Miami first: the Art Deco quarter, the Cuban streets of Little Havana, the murals of Wynwood Walls, swimming at Miami Beach and an evening walk along Ocean Drive. Then Everglades National Park, crossed by airboat through the mangroves, where crocodiles and wading birds are the point of the trip; depending on what is on locally, the group may also go to an American sports fixture. The last stretch is the Florida Keys, reached by the overseas highway, with time on the turquoise water of the archipelago.

The base offers an outdoor pool, a lounge and reception area, a dining room the group cooks in, and rooms with their own bathroom. Everything else on the programme happens away from the base: national park, beaches, city districts and the islands, all reached by the camp's own minibuses.

A small group - the operator caps it - travelling with the same adults for the whole route, one adult to every eight young people. The mix of city, wetland and island means the days are unalike: a museum-free street-art walk, an airboat under mangroves, a swim off the Keys. Because catering is co-managed, teenagers share the daily running of the camp rather than being catered for, which is what past participants pick out in the reviews the operator publishes.