Every driver in Twin Eagles knows the turn off Immokalee Road. Past the gatehouse, past the sign for TwinEagles Boulevard, home in under a minute. Fewer residents know that if they kept driving east on that same stretch of road for another six miles, they would hit a different gate entirely, one that leads to 13,000 acres of old-growth bald cypress forest that most of them have never actually walked into.
Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary describes itself, on its own site, as sitting about 30 minutes northeast of Naples. That is true for someone starting from downtown or Pelican Bay. It is not true for anyone starting from Twin Eagles. The Sanctuary's own directions put its entrance 15 miles east of Interstate 75 at exit 111, off Immokalee Road. Twin Eagles sits roughly 9 miles east of that same exit, on the same road. The gap between the two gates is about 6 miles, which at the speed people actually drive Immokalee Road works out to something closer to 10 or 12 minutes than a 30-minute outing. For Twin Eagles residents, the Sanctuary is not a day trip. It is an errand.
What Closed in August, What Opened in February
The reason this is worth writing about now, rather than any other September, is that the Sanctuary just went through the busiest stretch of construction in its recent history, and the pieces are only now settling into place.
The boardwalk, the Blair Visitor Center, and the attached exhibit hall closed to the public from August 17 through August 30 for the Sanctuary's annual maintenance window, with guided experiences still offered to anyone who booked ahead. That closure just ended. What reopened behind it looks different from what closed the year before.
Back in February, the Sanctuary finished the first phase of a capital campaign aimed at raising $20 million to rebuild its aging visitor campus. As of this year's reporting, roughly $17 million of that goal had been raised, with a $100,000 grant from the Collier Community Foundation among the contributions. The centerpiece of that first phase is the new Spurlino Foundation Discovery Center, a 1,600-square-foot exhibit hall inside the Blair Visitor Center that opened to the public on February 4, 2026. The phase also brought new parking lot signage, a rebuilt campus entrance, and 95 new interpretive and wayfinding signs along the 2.25-mile boardwalk itself.
In April, Audubon Florida's board and the Sanctuary's sustainability leadership held a groundbreaking for the next phase: an outdoor classroom complex, a shared campus hub for the conservation and education teams, and on-site lodging for seasonal staff and visiting researchers. That construction is underway now, which means the version of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary open to visitors this month is the most finished it has looked in years, with more still coming.
Sanctuary Director Keith Laakkonen put it simply when the Discovery Center opened:
"This investment has modernized and enhanced the visitor experience in the Discovery Center."
Three Reasons September Beats the Rest of the Year
Winter is when most of Collier County remembers the Sanctuary exists, when the boardwalk fills with visitors escaping colder states and the parking lot off Sanctuary Road West gets tight by mid-morning. September runs in the opposite direction, and this particular September stacks three reasons to go that will not all be sitting there again come January.
- A free community day on Saturday, September 19. The Sanctuary is opening its gates at no charge, with a bird talk from Helen Midney, museum manager at the Immokalee Pioneer Museum at Roberts Ranch, and Mexican ice cream bars for sale at the Blair Visitor Center.
- Half-price admission for Florida residents all month. Regular admission runs $17 for adults and $6 for kids ages 6 to 14. Residents who buy online and show proof of Florida residency at the desk pay half that through the end of September.
- Guided night tours, offered several times a month. As the boardwalk cools after sunset, guides lead small groups out to the observation tower and back, timed to catch the Sanctuary's nocturnal wildlife waking up. These run year-round, not just this month, but September's lighter crowds make them easier to book.
None of this requires planning a vacation day. It requires deciding that the six extra miles past your own gate are worth the drive on a Saturday morning, which is a much smaller ask.
What Is Actually New Inside
The old Discovery Center, before the renovation, was a modest exhibit space attached to the visitor center. The rebuilt version keeps the same footprint but reworks what is inside it. Current exhibits include "The Secret Lives of Plants," "Life Beneath the Surface," "Amphibians and Reptiles," and "Protecting Migratory Birds," each built to explain what the boardwalk shows you before or after you actually walk it. The Blair Visitor Center as a whole welcomes more than 80,000 visitors a year, a number that predates this renovation and will be worth watching now that the campus gives people more reason to linger before heading out to the cypress.
The boardwalk itself has not changed, and does not need to. It still runs 2.25 miles through pine flatwoods, wet prairie, and the old-growth cypress strand that gives the Sanctuary its reputation, past trees that have stood for roughly 500 to 600 years. What has changed is everything around it: the new signage that explains what you are looking at, the new entrance that replaces the tired one, and the Discovery Center that now gives the visit a beginning and an end instead of just a walk.
The Rest of the Drive
None of this displaces the stops Twin Eagles residents already treat as their own, off the same stretch of Immokalee Road. Stevie Tomato's Sports Page and Oak & Stone still anchor the corridor for a casual dinner. The Shoppes of Pebblebrooke still handle the errands that do not require a trip past the interstate. What the Sanctuary's renovation adds is a fourth option that sits in the same six-mile radius but rarely gets treated like a local stop, mostly because its own marketing tells everyone it is 30 minutes from somewhere else.
It isn't, not from here. The gate is six miles up the same road, the campus behind it just finished the most significant rebuild it has seen in years, and September is handing residents a free day, a half-price month, and a lighter crowd to take advantage of it before the winter traffic returns.
If you are weighing a move to Twin Eagles or comparing it against other North Naples communities, Roddy Luxury Group can walk you through what daily life actually looks like here, down to the six miles you will not mind driving. Contact Us to start that conversation.
