The Florida Keys

I stayed over in Florida this last weekend and took a drive down to the Florida Keys. I had always been intrigued by this thin strip of land extending from the bottom end of Florida and thought it would be a good idea to take a look. I think perhaps part of my interest was fueled by such films as Key Largo and by reading Hemingway when I was young, but alas I was a little disappointed. Of course, I knew I wasn’t going to find old run down hotels with Lauren Bacall running the front desk, but I did hope for something more inspiring than what I found which was nothing to inspire me.

I expected something more remote, less populated, less developed, but instead there was no such thing. There was development all the way down and it was mostly tacky development. As is the way these days, the area is catering to the tourists, and I think in Florida, the tourist appears to be the younger tourist (its party land for students – oh I must be getting so old now). Anyway, alas for me it was a series of tacky motels, bars and mediocre restaurants.

On the positive side there are some nice older parts of Key West – it must have been quite an interesting place in its day and the ocean always looked inviting and beautiful. Of course, the one thing that I didn’t take time to explore, which is a big part of the area, was the beaches and the diving and all that water related stuff (ok so that’s a huge part of what the Keys are about).

I did stay in Key Largo for the night in an overpriced run down old motel. But the place where they filmed bits of Key Largo is just a bar – a very tourist bar – and apparently most of the film was filmed over in Hollywood. Another strange link that Key Largo has with the movie industry and Humphrey Bogart is that it is the resting place of the African Queen. How it ended up there (in a marina across the street from the Key Largo bar) I don’t know but there it is in a marina – apparently it still works sometimes.

As far as you can go without a boat....


And the number one reason to avoid Florida.....