What To Do on Vacation in Key West Florida
Sightseeing, Fun Activities and Adventures
Exciting Plans for Your Vacation

Key West is a tropical oasis where you can truly get away from it all, without leaving the United States. It is one place where I feel completely at home, a laid-back, unpretentious place to wear flip-flops and cutoffs. Key West enjoys absolutely perfect weather year-round. What is there to do in Key West? Lots. Feast on the delicious local food, Key Lime Pie, Cuban Coffee, Conch Chowder, Florida Lobsters, and seafood so fresh it almost swims to your table. Join the eclectic parade of tourists through the shops and restaurants of Duval Street. Visit the charming museums and attractions. Take up water sports, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, jet skis, parasailing, sailing, kayaking and deep water fishing, or just soak up the sun.

What is there to do on your Key West vacation? There is enough to see and do and discover in Key West so you'll never be bored. If you decide to vacation in Key West, odds are you'll return again and again. Here are some of the sights and places to enjoy during your vacation in Key West:

What to do on vacation in Key West Florida

1. What To Do in Key West: Mallory Square Sunset Festival
2. What To Do in Key West: Duval Street Tour
3. What To Do in Key West: Old Town Trolley Tours
4. What To Do: Key West Lighthouse
5. What To Do in Key West: Hemingway House
6. What To Do in Key West: Sloppy Joe's Bar
7. What To Do in Key West: Southernmost Point of the US
8. What To Do in Key West: Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum
9. What To Do: Key West Aquarium
10. What To Do in Key West: Ft. Jefferson & Dry Tortugas National Park
11. What To Do in Key West: Audubon's House
12. What To Do in Key West: Truman's Little White House
13. What To Do in Key West: Fort Zachary Taylor
14. What To Do in Key West: Nancy's Secret Garden
15. Where is Key West Florida?
16. The Weather in Key West Florida
17. A Quick History of Key West
18. The Conchs of Key West
19. Interactive Google Map of What to Do in Key West

What To Do in Key West: Mallory Square Sunset Festival

Mallory Square Sunset Festival. You don't want to miss this free event. Every night about two hours before sunset the local street performers and vendors gather on Mallory Square at the end of Duval Street. While the brilliant sun drops into the sea, animals, jugglers, circus acts and street musicians perform impromptu for the public. You'll also see huge cruise ships docked here on this deep harbor.

What To Do in Key West: Duval Street Tour

Tour Duval Street. Duval Street is the main drag of old town Key West, with 15 blocks of shops, art galleries, bars, restaurants and strolling tourists. At the north end of Duval is Mallory Square, and at the south end is the Southernmost Point in the US. The bars are famous, the shops are quirky, and dress is ultra casual.

What To Do in Key West: Old Town Trolley Tours

Old Town Trolley Tours and the Couch Tour Train. Take one of these tours to see the sights of Key West. The trolley allows you to get off and board a later tour while the Train is one continuous tour. These are a good way to get oriented to Key West and its various sights.

What To Do: Key West Lighthouse

Key West Lighthouse. Built on Whitehead Street, its light shone for 120 years to warn ships away from the reefs. You can climb the 88 steps to the top for a great view. The Keeper's Quarters is a small museum of nautical souvenirs and vintage photos. Across the street is Ernest Hemingway's House.

What To Do in Key West: Hemingway House

Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. Hemingway, one of the greatest American novelists, lived here at 907 Whitehead Street in Key West from 1931 to 1939. Tour his house and the studio over the garage where he wrote some of his best novels. Along with his manual typewriter and numerous literary artifacts, you'll see 40 or more cats, many with six or seven toes, possibly descended from Papa's time here. In the yard is a urinal from Sloppy Joe's Bar that Hemingway converted into a water fountain. The house is now a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

What To Do in Key West: Sloppy Joe's Bar

Sloppy Joe's Bar, at the corner of Duval and Greene, Hemingway's favorite watering hole, has memorabilia from Papa hanging on the walls They have a live band most nights of the week, a gift shop, and another bar in the back. The Hemingway look-alike contest is in July. On New Year's Eve, they drop a conch shell from the roof.

What To Do in Key West: Southernmost Point of the US

Historic Mile Marker Zero and Southernmost Point. Mile Marker 0 is the southern tip of U.S. Highway 1, 2,390 miles from Fort Kent, Maine, the northern end of the highway. You'll see the small green marker at the corner of Fleming and Whitehead street. The Southernmost Point in the continental United States is marked at South and Whitehead Streets with a chubby red, black, and yellow barrel-shaped marker. However, the actual southernmost point is on a restricted naval base. At this point, you're only 90 miles north of Cuba. Of course you'll want to take your picture at these historic spots.

What To Do in Key West: Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum

Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum. Mel Fisher's non-profit museum displays some of the $450,000,000 treasure that he and his sons recovered from two Spanish galleons that sank off Key West during a hurricane on September 6, 1622. The ships were named the Nuestra Senora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita. Recovered treasures include over 40 tons of silver and gold bullion, 100,000 Spanish Pieces of Eight coins, gold doubloons, emeralds, pearls, and other artifacts of ship life in 1600.

Beginning in 1969, Mel Fisher, his sons and his crew spent sixteen years searching for the lost treasures. You'll see marvels of gold, silver, copper, jewelry, crystals, silverware, navigational instruments, military armaments, native American items, ceramics, even seeds and insects. And, if you are looking for adventure, there are six more sunken ships from the same flotilla that haven't been discovered yet.

What To Do: Key West Aquarium

Key West Aquarium. This is a small aquarium in the Mallory Square area with a touch tank, tarpon, sharks, and many other fish. It was originally built by the Works Project Administration, WPA, between 1932 and 1934. It is the only public aquarium in Key West, and one of the oldest in Florida.

What To Do in Key West: Ft. Jefferson & Dry Tortugas National Park

Ft. Jefferson and Dry Tortugas National Park. Construction of Fort Jefferson began in 1846 on Garden Key, an island about 68 miles west of Key West in the Dry Tortugas. Fort Jefferson was used as a Union prison for military deserters during the Civil War. Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted of setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated President Lincoln, was imprisoned here until he was pardoned. The Fort covers 11 acres, America's largest coastal fort. You can reach it by plane, boat or ferry, for touring the fort, bird watching, snorkeling and sunning. It is now a National Park and a wildlife refuge. 300 species of birds migrate to the Dry Tortugas including frigate birds and sooty terns.

What To Do in Key West: Audubon's House

Audubon’s House and Tropical Gardens. Visit the house on Whitehead Street where Audubon created 18 drawings for his “Birds of America" folio during 1932. Audubon's painting of the white-crowned pigeon shows the tree from this front yard. On exhibit are 28 first-edition works of Audubon, plus elegant period furnishings and a garden of lush tropical plants.

What To Do in Key West: Truman's Little White House

Truman’s Little White House. President Harry S. Truman and other Presidents vacationed at this historic building. Built in 1890, the house was the command headquarters of the naval station during the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II. President John F. Kennedy used this site for a summit meeting with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on March 26, 1961 just 23 days before the Bay of Pigs. Presidents Taft, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton stayed here. It is now a museum.

What To Do in Key West: Fort Zachary Taylor

Fort Zachary Taylor State Historical Site. Fort Taylor is an 87 acre state park with the best public beach in Key West. Construction of the fort began in 1845, shortly after Florida became a state. The Fort was used in the Civil War and the Spanish American War. Civil War cannons, guns and ammunition are on display, and Civil War reenactments are held at the fort. Park rangers offer daily guided tours.

What To Do: Nancy's Secret Garden

Nancy’s Secret Garden is a 30-year-old rainforest garden on Free School Lane that includes over 100 tropical palm trees, aroids, and cycads. There are exotics such as orchids nestling in branches, huge ferns, bromeliads, red ginger, pink heliconias and a "sunburn" gumbo-limbo tree. An art gallery is also on site.

Where is Key West Florida?

Key West is the southernmost city in the continental U.S. At the very end of U.S. Route 1, it is 129 miles southwest of Miami, and 98 miles north of Cuba. Yes, Key West is closer to Havana than Miami. It is a small flat island of coral about 4 miles long and 2 miles wide and, at the most, 18 feet above sea level, with the Atlantic on the east side and the Gulf of Mexico on the west. When they filled in the salt ponds in 1950, they actually doubled the area of this little city.

Because of its location on a deepwater channel called the Straits of Florida, Key West has always been a strategic military position. It is called the Gibraltar of the West.

Everything in Key West is within walking distance. The main tourist attraction is Old Town on the west side, with historical architecture from the nineteenth century. New Town, built on the salt pond landfill on the east side, has shopping centers, strip malls, homes, schools, parks and the airport. To reach this lovely vacation spot, you can fly into Key West International Airport, or you can drive down the keys on the Overseas Highway, 155 miles from Miami. You can take the new Key West Express ferry, a four-hour ride to Key West leaving from the Miami Seaquarium. You won't need a car in Key West. To get around, walk, bicycle, take a cab, or ride in the bicycle-carriage vehicles.

Here in Key West, Ernest Hemingway wrote “A Farewell to Arms”, “Death in the Afternoon”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Tennessee Williams called Key West his home and wrote his first draft of “A Street Car Named Desire” here. Many other artists and writers have found inspiration in Key West. The official city motto is "One Human Family."

The Weather in Key West Florida

Weather is balmy and moderate all year round. Key West has never had frost or snow. The Gulf Stream keeps the average January temperature at 67 to 75 degrees F. The prevailing easterly trade winds and sea breezes keep the city cool in summer. The average high temperature in June is under 90 degrees.

A Quick History of Key West

Juan Ponce de Leon was the first European visitor to Key West in 1521. The island was Spanish property until John W. Simonton bought it from Spain in 1821. Early settlers were immigrants from the Bahamas. In the nineteenth century, people in Key West made their living fishing, producing salt, and salvaging from the many shipwrecks on the nearby reefs. The city grew wealthy from the shipwrecks.

Shortly after Florida became a state, construction of Fort Zachary Taylor was begun in 1845. During the Civil War, Florida joined the Confederacy, but Key West was always Union. Ford Jefferson was built in the Dry Tortugas, 68 miles west of Key West. When Henry Flagler built the Overseas Railroad in 1912, Key West was finally connected to the mainland. In 1938 highway U.S. 1 was extended all the way to Key West.

More recently, in 1982, the U.S. Border Patrol blockaded the Overseas Highway, searching for illegal aliens from Cuba. In protest to this economic and tourist inconvenience, Key West declared its “independence” from the United States as the Conch Republic. The north boundary of the Conch Republic was defined as "Skeeter's Last Chance Saloon" in Florida City. You can still buy Conch Republic souvenirs on Duval Street.

The Conchs of Key West

The conch, pronounced "konk," is a large edible sea snail from the Gulf of Mexico. Conch fritters and chowder are comfort food in Key West. The conch shells are used for musical instruments, tools, ceremonial objects and jewelry. Natives of Key West call themselves conchs. When a baby is born in Key West, a conch shell is placed on a stick outside the house.

Interactive Google Map of Key West Florida
And What To Do on Vacation

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The best vacation souvenirs are happy memories.

I hope you have an exciting vacation.
I wish you a very happy day.

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