A magical place for those who love blooms and butterflies, Butterfly World at Tradewinds Park has a tropical garden indoors and an outstanding passionflower collection.
The maze of passionflower vines said to be the world’s largest collection of its kind, but it’s only one of several gardens and features at this natural attraction.
Winding through the Paradise Adventure AviaryResources
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Overview
Location: Coconut Creek
Trailhead: 26.269611,-80.172339
Address: 3600 W Sample Rd, Coconut Creek
Fees: $32.50 ages 12 and up, $22.50 ages 3-11. AAA and military discounts, as well as annual passes. Check their website for discount coupons, too.
Restroom: in the gift shop and by the cafe
Land manager: Butterfly World
Phone: 954-977-4434
Open daily. Mon-Sat 9-5, Sun 11-5. Closed Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The Butterfly Flight area and Lorikeet Encounter close at 4:30 PM.
No pets permitted. All pathways and buildings are accessible. USDA regulations require one way traffic through butterfly flight areas.
Directions
Follow Sample Rd west from Interstate 95 or Florida’s Turnpike in Coconut Creek. Turn left into Tradewinds Park South. On weekends and holidays there is a gate attendant and park entrance fee. Continue past the first parking area to the next one on the right, right in front of Butterfly World.
Exploring the Attraction
Blooms, butterflies, and birds interact in a symphony of color inside a series of aviaries.
The Paradise Adventure Aviary connects to the soaring interior of the Tropical Rain Forest Aviary through a hanging garden, where you can see butterflies emerging from pupae.
Top of the Tropical Rain ForestPlants are much larger and centered around splashing waters inside the humid Tropical Rain Forest.
Watch carefully to see the many species of tropical butterflies fluttering and gliding as you walk through the tropical plantings.
A macro lens lets you get up close to beeautyExiting to the gardens, you walk through Grace Gardens along Butterfly World Lake.
With blooming tropical plantings on display and macaws on perches, it brings back childhood memories of Florida attractions.
Grace Gardens and the swinging bridgeEntering the vine maze, you’re introduced to our favorite garden in the complex, a maze of passionflower vines said to be the world’s largest collection of its kind.
Hidden inside the maze is the Tropical Bird Aviary.
A formal English rose garden adjoins the Garden Gazebo and Garden Cafe.
It’s here you can also feed the lorikeets, or cool down inside two museum buildings, the Butterfly Museum with its mounted specimens and the Bug Zoo with its live ones.
Mounted butterflies assist in identification of speciesA swinging bridge crosses the water. If you have kids along, they’ll be tempted to dash across it more than once.
It leads to the Jewels of the Sky Aviary with its tropical birds amid the tropical plantings.
Colors and textures in the aviaryNear the exit is a second cafe, the Mariposa Cafe, and a garden center for you to pick up plants to take home for your own butterfly garden.
The gift shop is filled with butterfly-themed art and knick knacks and sells mounted butterflies as well.
Garden Center with plants for saleExplore More!
Slideshow
See our photos of Butterfly World
Nearby Adventures
More worth exploring while you’re in this area.
Fern Forest Nature Center
A bounty of ferns awaits at Fern Forest Nature Center, where more than two miles of trails introduce you to a slice of Florida’s past, a tropical forest surrounding the original floodplain of Cypress Creek
Tall Cypress Natural Area
Protecting 66 acres of natural habitats in Coral Springs, Tall Cypress Natural Area offers a wonderland of ferns along its loop trail through a cypress slough
Flamingo Gardens
From its roots in a citrus grove, a nonprofit botanical garden sprouted through the efforts of Floyd and Lula Wray. In 1927, they purchased 320 acres to grow citrus and a year later, Floyd hired Frank Stirling to create a botanical garden for test planting of tropical fruit and flowering trees.
Bonnet House
Named for the water lilies that once flourished in the freshwater marsh in front of this grand home, the 35 acres of tropical forest on which the Bonnet House was built was a gift from industrialist Hugh Taylor Birch to his daughter Helen and son-in-law Fredric Clay Bartlett, a noted artist.