Beach Battles: The Florida Keys
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South Florida & Keys escape
Drive the Overseas Highway from Miami to Key West, one bridge at a time.
The Florida Keys are a chain of small islands that curve southwest from the tip of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. One road connects them, the Overseas Highway, which hops from island to island across bridges with open water on both sides. In the Beach Battles episode, Key West takes on Wrightsville Beach in a beach-versus-beach showdown, judged over a short episode, and Key West holds its own. This itinerary gives the island more room than the show could: the full drive down US-1 from Miami to the end of the road. The link below opens the full trip, and you can change any part of it.
Start in Miami Beach
Miami Beach is a barrier island with Art Deco hotels, wide sand and a lively street scene, and it makes an easy place to start. The itinerary fills the days with a guided tour of the Wynwood Walls, an outdoor museum where street artists have turned a former warehouse district into a canvas of murals. A thirty-minute helicopter tour follows, showing how the coastline, the bay and the city fit together from above.
Expect the unexpected during the tour of Wynwood Walls.
Before you head south, a half-day airboat tour of the Everglades from Sawgrass Recreation Park gives you a look at the wetland that lies just beyond Miami's edge. Airboats skim across the shallow, grassy water, and the park's reptile exhibits let you see alligators up close.
Plan on seeing your fair share of alligators during the Everglades tour.
Drive the Overseas Highway
Then you point the car south, and the trip really begins. US-1 crosses 42 bridges on its way down the Keys, with mangroves lining the shore and turquoise shallows on either side. The first long stop is Key Largo, which gets a full free day, with the Baker's Cay Resort as your base on the water. Farther along is Islamorada, roughly the midpoint of the drive and a fishing town known for its dockside lunches. It's a good place to stop before the last stretch south.
The drive from Miami to Key West is unique and unforgettable.
End Where the Road Ends
The highway finishes in Key West, and the island is built for the arrival. The Marker Key West Harbor Resort puts you close to the working harbor, where much of the island's life happens. A two-hour sunset sail takes you out onto open water as the light changes. A guided biking tour of about two and a half hours covers the old town, where the wooden "conch houses" (named for the nickname locals carry) sit along streets draped in bougainvillea. In the evening, Duval Street takes over, with its bars, live music and crowds drifting between them.
No trip to Key West is complete without a lively night on Duval Street.
The itinerary books as a single trip through the link below. You can add Everglades time, spend longer in Key Largo or stay for more sunsets at the southern end of the island. Click through and shape it into your own.
South Florida & Keys escape
Drive the Overseas Highway from Miami to Key West, one bridge at a time.
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