PlantripAudio tours

READY

Press ▶︎ to start the tour

Or tap any story below to hear it now.

Start at 1. Moat and the walls

Start at the trailhead. Each story plays as you reach its place on the trail.

Free audio tour6 stories

Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

A narrated walk from the moat bridge through the sally port and around Fort Jefferson's parade ground on Garden Key: why the army built a giant brick fort 70 miles out at sea, the people who built it, two lighthouses, the barracks and powder magazines, the prisoners, yellow fever and the water problem.

12 min of audio · 0 miles · Read the transcript

Your route

N ↑123456

Tap a stop to hear its story. Reference route. Outline markers are optional stories.

All stories

    On this phone

    Not downloadedGPS: idle
    Audio settings

    Getting started

    1. Start in the right placeThis tour begins at The moat and the walls. Start at the trailhead; the first story plays when you arrive.
    2. Let's hear itUse headphones or the phone speaker at a comfortable volume. Download the tour while you still have signal.
    3. Stories meet you thereYour phone's location starts each story automatically. Music flows straight into the narration. Keep this page open; it keeps the screen awake for GPS.
    4. You're ready to exploreDry Tortugas is about 70 miles west of Key West and can only be reached by boat or seaplane (the Yankee Freedom ferry, Key West Seaplane Adventures, or your own boat; there is no road). Download the tour before you leave Key West. Fort Jefferson is open sunrise to sunset. Press Start on the bridge over the moat at the fort's entrance, walk through the sally port, then follow the walkway around the edge of the parade ground counterclockwise, lighthouse first. About 0.4 miles, flat. Six stories of about two minutes each: pause at each spot while its story plays.

    Restart from the beginning

    Feedback

    Liked it? Something off, like a wrong fact or a story that played at the wrong moment? Tell us; that's how it gets better.

    Facts from the National Park Service (Dry Tortugas park pages on Fort Jefferson, Garden Key, lighthouses, people, places, sea turtles, hours and fees; the park's wayside signs; the Historic American Buildings Survey drawings of the parade-ground structures; Edwin Bearss, Historic Structure Report: Fort Jefferson 1846-1898 (NPS, 1983); The African American Experience at Fort Jefferson, 1847-1876 (New South Associates for NPS); Foundation Document, 2017). Walkway geometry © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Music: Shenandoah, United States Air Force Academy Band (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Narration is AI-generated. Not an official National Park Service product.