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Marking the Miles
Destinations · June 6, 2002

Bill Ford believes the 160-mile journey between Miami and Key West is "just about the only decent road trip in the entire state of Florida." And he ought to know. Ford used to run Harley-Davidson motorcycle tours from Orlando to the Southernmost City, and he says there's "a real cult aspect" to the drive.

Maybe it's the feeling that when you're crossing the spans of the Overseas Highway, you're riding on water. Maybe it's the legendary hangouts where crusty locals mix with weekend tourists - weathered institutions like Alabama Jack's near Key Largo, Lorelei's in Islamorada, and Sloppy Joe's in Key West.

Then again, maybe it's the danger.

The drive starts with an unexpected adrenaline rush - a harrowing trip down an 18-mile, mostly two-lane strip of asphalt between Florida City and the islands called "The Stretch." It isn't uncommon for cars to zoom past you at speeds topping 100 miles per hour. More often than not, though, it's a stop-and-go caravan of pickups hauling fishing boats, slow-moving campers and rental convertibles. (If you want to avoid the mess, take the more scenic Card Sound Road.)

Highway One widens into four lanes at about Mile Marker 106 and you're met with the next hazard: a speed trap. They don't warn you about this in any of the tourism brochures, but they probably should.

There are other, more welcome, thrills in the upper Keys. Like coming face-to-face with a barracuda or nurse shark while snorkeling in John Pennekamp State Park. Or getting up close and personal with osprey, pelicans and heron at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center in Tavernier. Most motorists fly past these attractions on their way to Key West, oblivious to the excitement they're missing.

Four lanes merge back into two at as you continue down the road, and it will remain that way for most of the rest of the trip. Squeezing all that traffic into two lanes makes things interesting. There are two kinds of motorists here - the ones who are in a hurry, and the ones who aren't - and they don't play nice together. It's not unusual to see a rental car trying to get around a slower truck by leaving the road and passing from the right, churning dust and pebbles in every direction.

Islamorada offers another kind of trap - the tourist trap. The World Wide Sportsman, a 26,000-square foot megamall for outdoor enthusiasts, stands between you and the lower Keys. Inside its cavernous retail space, you can tour the 46-foot sister ship to Ernest Hemingway's "Pilar" and ogle at tarpon and bonefish swimming in a giant aquarium. There are three restaurants on the property, all specializing in seafood.

If you want to get closer to the fish without eating them or chartering a boat, try heading a little further south, beyond Mile Marker 78, to Robbie's Marina, where you can feed a school of more than a hundred tarpon from a dock. This looks a lot easier than it is, because when you dangle a sardine above these hungry creatures, they tend to launch out of the water to snatch the food from you. Remember to let go of the bait.

From this point onward, it isn't so much what's along the road, but what lies beyond that, that you have to look out for. As you cross the brides between the Keys, the views become increasingly picturesque. A turquoise Atlantic on your left, an emerald Florida Bay on the other side stretching into what seems to be infinity. Overhead, a deep blue sky with a few puffy white clouds. The cars are moving along southwestward in a relatively orderly fashion, but then some driver will inevitably be smitten by the scenery and veer into the median.

It's easy to go into a kind of trance and miss the rest of the islands. Long Key State Park in Layton is practically hidden on the ocean side of the island at the beginning of a long straightaway that leads on to one of the prettiest bridges in the Keys, the Long Key Viaduct. The Museum of Natural History in Marathon is not difficult to overlook either, even though it's the kind of attraction where you could easily spend half a day exploring the exhibits and nature trails.

And then you wake up at the Seven Mile Bridge. This is the longest and arguably the most scenic of the 42 spans on the Overseas Highway. On some days, you can't see the end of the road. The sky and the sea merge into a collage of blues and you feel as if you're driving along a two-lane road that might carry you across the Florida Straits to Cuba and beyond.

Resist the temptation to speed up, because you're about to cross on to Big Pine Key, home of the rare Key deer. These relatives of the Virginia white-tailed deer are about the size of a large dog, and they're extremely friendly. A little too friendly, maybe. Every year, despite strict speed limits, dozens of these gentle creatures are struck by cars. There are said to be fewer than 300 Key deer left on the planet - all of them on this island.

Make one more stop before you get to the Southernmost City, down at Mile Marker 17. Next to the Sugarloaf Motel you'll find Perky's Bat Tower, a 50-foot structure built to attract bats, which in turn were supposed to eat the mosquitoes. It didn't work, and now the tower is nothing more than a "gee-whiz" photo opportunity along the road.

Key West brings you to the end of the drive at Mile Marker 0, which is just across from the county courthouse. Every other week, a tourist tries to steal the "MM 0" sign as a memento from the Keys (and not always successfully). If you try to continue this tradition - not recommended - you'll encounter the final danger on this road trip: being pursued by the Key West police.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla.