To continue my “Visiting Florida” Series, I’m writing about The Keys!

So as you guys know from my previous post, it is now the fourth day of my Florida Trip.

After spending our last night in Orlando, we woke up bright and early (not really, we actually woke up pretty late in the day) and decided to get brunch at Au Bon Pain and drive 7 hours to the Keys, specifically Key West.

Before we left Orlando, we visited some of the other hotels in the area, because all of them were so beautiful from the Christmas Lights, and then started driving around 10 in the morning.

A trip that should have taken 7 hours, ended up taking 13 because of all of the traffic.

We finally reached our hotel and took a hotel sponsored bus to Mallory Square. It was definitely a strange experience I got to say. It was like being back in college, with all of the alcohol, the drugs, the crazy people, only this time instead of being surrounded by 32000 teenagers/young adults, I was with my family and a lot of people in two key demographics: newlywed, or well, nearly dead. (Sorry Florida). I was glad we only were spending one night in the Keys because we are not the hip-happening party people that everyone else in the Keys seemed to be. So instead, we hung out downtown for about 45 minutes then went back to the hotel; ordered a pizza and sat in and watched a movie, and slept early because we had a jam packed day the next day.

We woke up (actually) bright and early and felt like we were in a completely different place. Our hotel was absolutely beautiful, and had a mini beach in the back, where we took plenty of pictures. We packed up and were ready to go! Our plan was only to spend a half day in the Keys because we had to make our way to Miami.

We headed over to Duval Street and walked around for hours. Duval Street is perhaps one of the most popular destinations on the Key West Island, running north and south from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. The area is only about a mile in length but this is where the city comes alive.

We also bought street side coconuts where we drank the coconut water and tried to go to harbor area. Turns out it was actually a naval base and you need a government ID to enter (We should go back now and I can now use my government id) so alas, we walked some more.

The most popular spot was the Southernmost Bouy, which symbolizes the southernmost part of the United States. It is the lowest latitude land of contiguous North American States.

Lastly, before we started driving again, we went to Ernest Hemingway’s Home and Museum, which is definitely a sight to see!

On our 3 hour trip to Miami we stopped by many of the Keys on the way and took thousands of scenic pictures! No matter which Key you decide to visit, be sure to take the time to visit a few others, because they’re absolutely amazing. I was finally starting to see the appeal of the “Boardwalk Weather 24/7,”

Tune in tomorrow to hear about the next part of my trip: Miami! 🙂

xo

Sandhya

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