It’s a fully functioning veterinary hospital that rescues, rehabilitates and releases sick sea turtles. The Turtle Hospital is also located in Marathon. There may be a billion trillion lionfish eating the native fish out of house and home on the reefs below, but I played my part and ate this one!Ĭlick here for places to eat in Marathon if you’re in the mood for a pit stop > But what makes it unique is that they serve up lionfish as sushi – and use the head and tail for presentation. It’s a bar/slash/diner that looks like it’s been here forever and is frequented by locals. It’s Marathon’s oldest restaurant and one of the few places where you can get lion fish on a plate. In fact we never would have found it, but I’m glad I had the tip to stop. Hidden off the main highway on a sleepy marina, I honestly wouldn’t have looked twice at if I hadn’t had the recommendation.
Marathon is at mile marker 48 (heading south to 0, driving distance 115 miles from Miami), and as I was on a quest to seek revenge and eat the beautiful but terrible tropical fish, lion fish, I was recommended to visit Castaway’s for lunch.
MIAMI TO KEY WEST SERIES
The next key you’ll come to heading south is Islamorada (where the Netflix series Bloodline was set), but we stopped at Marathon Key as we were staying at Islamorada on the way back, so saved that for later. The marina outside Castaway’s restaurant, Marathon In fact all of the Keys are famous for fishing, diving and snorkeling but they are also surrounded by mangroves so while ocean sports are easy to come by, so too are kayaking and bird watching.
You may know that Key Largo is home to the quirky Jules Undersea Hotel where you need to don a wetsuit to get to your room and spend the night sleeping underwater (which would freak me out!) and it’s also a great place to learn to SCUBA. We did blink and had to pull off at the next slip road to cross over Highway 1 and come back up again. In fact it’s barely marked on a road sign! If you blink you could miss it and suddenly you’re on your way through to Islamorada. You can read all about the lionfish in my previous post here >ĭon’t expect Key Largo to be a metropolis. In a nut shell, the coral reef stretches from Martin County FL, north of Fort Lauderdale, all the way down to well past Key West. So my first stop was to visit the team at REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) who are trying to battle the plague. It took us about an hour from Miami Airport where we had Uber’d from our hotel to pick up our rental car so we could return it to the same location and fly out at the end of the week.Īs part of my research of things to do and see on our Florida Keys road trip, I came upon the topic of the lion fish and the monstrous eco disaster that this very pretty, small, yet venomous, aquarium fish is wreaking on the marine life of the Keys, the Gulf of Mexico and all the way down to South America. Miami to Key Largo driving distance is 69 miles and is the first key you’ll come to. If you are driving an RV and are looking for great campsites in places like Bahia Honda State Park, Big Pine Key and Dry Tortugas National Park, you’ll like my post covering 10 amazing RV parks in the Keys. Rotten chicken anyone? Here is my 4-day Miami to Key West drive itinerary: I would have loved to stay longer as two nights in Key West was barely enough time – there are four national parks in the Florida Keys area too, but if you just want to pop down for a weekend, this Miami to Key West drive will give you a few ideas of what to do down here.įeeding the alligators at Everglades National Park. Of course, on your visit to Florida you’ll probably stay in Miami a night or two – and there’s plenty to see and do in Miami for a weekend, that’s for sure! Or Fort Lauderdale to Key West in about four hours. For example you can drive from Orlando to Key West in about 6.5 hours, Tampa to Key West in just about the same time. Tip: look for cheaper deals on flights into other Florida airports than Miami. The Miami to Key West drive could take 3 hours or 3 days! I’ve also added the Keys and Key West to this list of 12 fun places to have Spring Break in Florida. There’s certainly enough to do and see along the Florida Keys to take four or five days – or even two weeks if you’re going to take all your leave! He gets behind the wheel and navigates on the wrong side of the road (we’re from New Zealand!) and I give him “helpful” advice along the way, which sometimes he finds annoying – whaaaaat 😉 If you love a USA road trip, check out our 7-day Utah road trip and our PCH road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco. It can get pretty crowded on Highway 1, especially on weekends, or God forbid, there is a crash, and I didn’t want to risk missing our flight. Bridges link the keys all the way down to Key West
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