The Florida Keys are 113 miles of islands strung out into the Gulf on a single road with 42 bridges. You start in the Everglades and finish 90 miles from Cuba.
The drive is the thing. But a lot of people treat the Keys as a corridor to Key West and blow past everything in between, which is a genuine waste of a very good day.
Here’s what’s worth stopping for, ordered roughly as you’d hit it driving south.
1. Snorkel or Dive at Key Largo
The only living coral barrier reef in the continental US runs the length of the Keys a few miles offshore, and Key Largo is where you get on it.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was the first underwater park in the country. Boats run out several times a day and you don’t need to dive, snorkelling is plenty since a lot of the reef sits in 3 to 6 metres of water.
The Christ of the Abyss statue is the famous one, a bronze figure standing in about 8 metres with arms raised. Slightly odd, genuinely memorable.
Book a morning trip. Afternoon wind picks up and the visibility drops with it.
2. Islamorada, and Actually Stopping
Islamorada calls itself the sport fishing capital of the world and it has the boats to back it up. Even if you have no interest in fishing, the marinas at sunset are a proper scene.
Robbie’s is the one everyone goes to, where you buy a bucket of fish and hand-feed enormous tarpon off the dock. They’re a metre and a half long and they come out of the water at you. Pelicans steal from you the whole time.
It is touristy and it is also genuinely great fun. Just watch your fingers.
Anne’s Beach nearby is a rare actual beach in the Keys, shallow and warm and good for a swim.
▶ Watch This Before You Go
3. The Seven Mile Bridge
The famous one. Seven miles of road across open water between Marathon and the Lower Keys, with nothing either side but blue.
The old bridge runs alongside it, built in 1912 as part of Flagler’s railway, and a 2.2 mile section has been restored as a walking and cycling path. Do that rather than just driving.
Pigeon Key sits under the old bridge, a small island that housed the railway workers, and you can visit it.
4. Bahia Honda State Park
Consistently voted the best beach in the Keys, which matters because most of the Keys don’t really have beaches. The islands are coral, not sand, and the reef stops the surf that would build one.
Bahia Honda is the exception. Proper sand, shallow turquoise water, and a view back to the ruined old railway bridge.
Get there early. The car park fills and they close the gate, and people do get turned away by 10am on winter weekends.
5. Meet the Key Deer
On Big Pine Key there’s a subspecies of white-tailed deer that’s about the size of a large dog. Around 700 of them exist, all on a handful of islands, and nowhere else on earth.
The National Key Deer Refuge has trails and they’re most active at dawn and dusk. Blue Hole, an old quarry now full of fresh water, is the reliable spot and often has an alligator in it too.
Do not feed them. It’s the main reason they end up on the road, and roadkill is the biggest threat to the population.
6. Key West’s Old Town
Duval Street is the main drag and it’s a mile of bars, t-shirt shops and people who have had a lot of rum. Walk it once for the experience.
The actual pleasure is the streets either side: wooden conch houses with wraparound porches, gingerbread trim, chickens wandering across the road. The chickens are protected and they know it.
Hemingway’s house is here, where he lived in the 1930s, complete with descendants of his six-toed cat still wandering the grounds. About sixty of them. It’s a lovely house and the cats are the reason most people come.
The Southernmost Point buoy has a queue of about forty minutes for a photo of a concrete marker. IMO walk past and use the time on the Hemingway house.
7. Sunset at Mallory Square
Every evening Key West holds a sunset celebration on the waterfront. Jugglers, a man with trained cats, tightrope walkers, and a few hundred people watching the sun drop into the Gulf.
It’s been happening nightly since the 1960s. It’s cheesy and it’s also completely charming, and the sunsets genuinely are exceptional because there’s nothing between you and the horizon.
Arrive an hour early. Or watch from a sunset sail, which costs more and gets you away from the crowd.
8. Dry Tortugas National Park
This is the big one and it’s the least visited national park in the continental US, because getting there means a 70 mile boat or seaplane trip from Key West.
Fort Jefferson is a colossal unfinished 19th century brick fortress sitting on a tiny island in the middle of nothing. 16 million bricks. It was a prison, most famously for the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth’s leg.
The snorkelling around the moat wall is the best in Florida and there’s nobody there. The ferry runs once a day and books out weeks ahead.
Full day, not cheap, absolutely worth it.
9. Eat Key Lime Pie, Properly
Real key lime pie is pale yellow, not green. If it’s green, it’s food colouring and you should be suspicious of everything else on the menu.
Key limes are smaller and more acidic than regular limes. The filling is condensed milk, egg yolk and juice, set without baking, on a graham cracker base.
Every place in the Keys claims the best one. Try several, it’s a legitimate research project.
10. Just Drive the Overseas Highway
Mile markers count down from 106 in Key Largo to zero in Key West, and locals give directions entirely in them.
Do it in daylight, don’t rush it, and pull off whenever the water looks good, which is constantly. The whole drive is about three and a half hours without stops and should take a full day with them.
Southbound is better for the views, since you’re on the water side of the road 🙂
Common Questions
How many days do you need in the Florida Keys? Four is comfortable. One driving down with stops, two in Key West, one for Dry Tortugas or the reef.
When is the best time to visit? December to April for dry, warm weather. Summer is hot, humid and wet, and hurricane season runs June to November with the peak in September.
Do the Keys have good beaches? Not really, and that surprises people. Bahia Honda and Sombrero Beach are the exceptions. The Keys are about the water, not the sand.
Is Key West worth staying overnight? Yes. The town changes completely after the day-trippers and cruise passengers leave, and sunset is the whole point.
Can you drive from Miami to Key West in a day? Yes, about four hours without stopping. But you’d be missing the reason to go.
