The Hemingway Awe of the Florida Keys

I spent a good few years of my childhood growing up in small-town central Florida; weekends at the beach, summer holidays at Disney World, and other special attractions of Orlando, and yet, it wasn't until I was 21 and had been to 12 other countries that I ever made it down to the Florida Keys.

The thrill of Florida for my Tennessee friends was somewhat dulled by my years living there, and so when they took their holidays in Orlando and Panama City, I was looking for other places to go. When a friend of mine came over from Scotland and we decided to do a driving trip of familiar places in the states, it seemed wrong to go all the way to Florida and not see the keys.

We loaded up a full-sized dodge pickup and headed down the heat-simmering highway to the Florida Keys  as one of our party, still drunk from the night before, slept it off in the back.

It was late April, and even so the heat was so intense that my Scottish friend spent two days under the hotel's air-conditioner with a bottle of aloe vera. After a few pit stops, and a blown out tire somewhere south of Miami, we drove past Key Largo and into the heart of the keys.

I think this is probably quite a good time of year to visit the keys... you get the full enjoyment of the sun, but with off season prices. We didn't book ahead of time for a hotel as we usually do, and still found a really nice place to crash and enjoy all that the keys have to offer, which is by no means limited.
 
A week filled with incredible sunsets, sunrises, and leisurely walks down near empty, Cuban-esque streets.
With money there is no limit to the pleasure trips you can take in the Keys, like renting  water vehicles, and without much cash there is a lot to see and do while walking about.

It's a very scenic place, and it reignited my enthusiasm for visiting the state of Florida. It's hard to walk down the sun-baked streets of any one of the Keys with out picturing Ernest Hemingway sauntering past with a fishing pole. There's a reason he spent so much time there, and it's worth seeing for yourself.

Quick Tips:

As I mentioned above, this is a trip done well with cash. Some are just as enjoyable with spare change as with a lot of money to spend, but if I could have done this one over, I would have spent a little bit more money on all the things there are to do in the keys. But a walk around most of the keys, particularly Key West, can be a very entertaining trip on it's own. There is no limit to photographic opportunities, the Keys are a paradise of lights and sunsets and palm trees.

The heat is intense, though... more so than in central Florida, so if you are enjoying mildish warmth in Orlando and decide to drive down to the Keys (as it's only about a 5 hour drive), be prepared for a considerable rise in temperature.

The hotels and motels in the off season often have vacancies, and we lucked out and got a good room for a great price, but as is usually a good idea I would recommend looking online to book ahead of time just incase. Also, you can swim with dolphins at the world famous Dolphins Plus in Key Largo. This is something I looked at and did not fork out the cash for (I was leaving the next week for Las Vegas), but I've always regretted not doing it, and I've heard from many other sources that it is the best thing to do in the Keys.

Best Way To Get Around:

I would highly recommend driving down to the Florida Keys. Friends of ours took the truck and drove to Key West and so we hoofed around a lot of Key Marathon, where we stayed, and had no real problems with that (other than the heat)—but the best way is certainly to have your own car. A lot of the good sights involve driving, like seeing the sunset from the 7 Mile Bridge, and checking out several of the keys and all that they have to offer.
 
Driving south of Miami, we passed a Greyhound bus headed south towards the keys, and I did not envy those people. Anyone who has ever taken a Greyhound will understand that sentiment, and those who haven't I will state once again my motto regarding Greyhound, "NEVER EVER AGAIN."

So yes, I would highly recommend driving down to the keys, but if you do end up wheel-less once you are there, it's still quite nice wandering around on foot.

There's not really a lot you can say about a motel, as most of them are pretty much the same. But it is true that there isn't an over flowing abundance of places to stay in the Florida Keys,and so I will review the simplicity that was The Sand Piper Motel.

Simple is probably the best way to describe it. There is no glowing report I can add to it, but I can not think of a single problem that we had staying there, either, and for someone on any kind of budget wanting to visit the Ernest Hemingway spirit of the keys, the Sandpiper is as good a place to start as any.

We drove into Key Marathon at sunset with, as of yet, no place to stay. We pulled into the Sandpiper, with a pink-neon sign lit up outside, the stinging smell of salt water blowing off the water just a few steps across the road.
Being April, they had vacancies, and for a very reasonable price we were able to book a room for the four of us for the night.

The place is very clean and has everything you need. The night was quiet, and even came with a complimentary black-and-white cat that wandered in to say "Hello" when we arrived, and went back out and on about his way when we went out for dinner.

It's very "Florida Keys", and has a room for cooking and cleaning fish just off the main room. The whole place was very clean and kept-up, the air-conditioning worked flawlessly, and the bathroom was adequate. The TV worked fine—everything you needed in a room to crash in while you enjoyed the outdoors of the keys. There were no extras, but what it did offer was more than adequate. It even offered a little bit of local color, with palm trees and unripened coconuts littering the yard outside.

And the Sandpiper is conveniently located across the street from the one and only Turtle Hospital, and within walking distance of seeing some of the local stuff.

All in all, a very pleasant lodging experience, for a really decent price. I would look to the Sandpiper again the next time I'm in Key Marathon.

It's kind of hard to classify this entry, but seeing as how it is actually a shop I've decided to class it as such. But I'm not recommending a stop in at the Bass Pro Shop just for those who have come to the keys to fish. It was my first taste of the Florida Keys, and one that I am very happy I indulged in.

The friend of mine who was driving wanted to stop off in Key Islamorada at a little pier-side restaurant for what he assured me was "world class dolphin" (by which, of course, he meant mahi-mahi and not bottle-nosed dolphin). Unfortunately, as if often the case, my friend and I found ourselves a little short on cash and decided to wait until we hit an Arby's or McDonald's up the road.

But we had some time to kill, and the walk around the docks was the first real taste of the Florida keys we had. The first breath of salty-sea air filled our lungs, and told us we had indeed made it to Hemingway's Paradise. The parking lot outside of Bass Pro Shop is a sandy area and a pier, with some beautiful spots for taking photographs. Very "paradise" setting, with palm trees set against deep-blue skies and sparkling waters, and seagulls landing on the surrounding boats.

While our friends ate dolphin, we wandered into the Bass Pro Shop—mostly to get out of the sun. (My friend was still newly arrived from Scotland, and not yet accustomed to all this "sun nonsense." )

The room was cool and we wandered around looking at the merchandise, thinking about making a bit of a fishing trip while we were there, when suddenly in the middle of the room, we walked into a huge surprise. Smack dab in the middle of the Bass Pro Shop is a full replica of Ernest Hemingway's fishing boat, The Pilar. For no charge you can walk into it, and have a look around what Hemingway would have spent so much of is time on in Cuba and the Keys. We snapped a few shots, sat for a minute near the typewriter, and walked out to meet our friends and travel on to Key Marathon.

It's a rare and special treat when you stumble onto something you wanted to see in a place that you didn't know was there, but that was our experience in Islamorada. It is well worth your time to drop-in and pay Hemingway's spirit a warm hello on your way into the Keys.

And if you happened to have the money... you might wan to try the mahi-mahi.

The experience of the Florida Keys isn't complete without getting up close with some form of marine life, whether it is swimming with dolphins in Key Largo, fishing off the coast of the keys, or stopping in for a visit at the unique Turtle Hospital on Key Marathon. There is nothing flash about this (though it has recently gone through some renovations), but getting to be in the presence of sea turtles is an experience to be had. The Turtle Hospital was opened with the main objective of helping injured sea turtles and returning them to the wild, and has done that with great success since 1986. It is completely a charitable operation, with volunteers as workers, and most of its funding comes from private donations. Four types of sea turtles are treated in the hospital: Loggerhead, Green, Hawksbill, and Kemp's Ridley, and generally they have about 50 sea turtles recuperating at any given time. Aside from the simple experience of being in the presence of sea turtles, this is a nice thing to be a part of. They offer 45-minute guided tours of the hospital and a 45-minute tour of the turtle rehabilitation area. The cost of the tour is adult $15 and children $7.50--and though this is a bit pricey, the money all goes to the work these volunteers do and the great success they have with healing injured turtles. You must make reservations at (305) 743-2552, and the tours run daily at 10am, 1pm, and 4pm. The hospital is very easy to find and is directly across the street from the Sand Piper motel. This is an interesting and slightly different thing to see while visiting the Florida Keys.

When taking good photos is a big point of your trip—sunsets are always high on the 'to do' list. And even if it's not, when you visit somewhere like the Florida Keys, getting in a good sunset is an important part of the experience.
There are a lot of good sunset opportunities to be had in the Keys, and because good photo opps are an important thing I look for when I travel, I'll be reviewing more than one of them. But this first one is the one I got the best shots of, and is a great experience in the keys as well as photo opportunity.
The road nearing the famous Seven Mile Bridge to Key West (as filmed in True Lies)is lined with palm trees, and is an excellent place to get shots and sit and view the sunsets the keys have to offer.
We drove up just as the sun was beginning to lower in the sky, and joined the other groups of people waiting to watch. To this day I would rank the Florida Keys highly in the best sunsets I've ever seen, and even if you have no interest whatsoever in taking photos of this, it's something you really shouldn't miss on a trip to the keys.
And as I generally make a point of mentioning, it's something you can do that won't cost any money at all.