Wandering Like (Working) Pirates

Florida Keys, grab-and-go visit to paradise

Written by: Jack Collier

It's not exactly a grab-and-go. But it's close. Time to de-stress from the carousel, the work-from-home girlfriend and her stuck-in-the-office boyfriend having a Florida Keys trip planned out a couple of weeks in advance. A threeday powder, leave Fort Myers Thursday, back Sunday. Some 800 miles total, three or four tanks of gas in her Ford SUV, as we chose to wander and spend like working pirates.

Our accommodation, food and entertainment price choices are about mid-range, by the way, so you could travel harder, pay less, maybe fish from shore or bridges, thrift or poke through the hundreds of roadside tourist places like Robbie's Marina in Islamorada or follow the nine-stop Florida Keys Sculpture Trail, and you'll come out better.

But no matter how you handle it, you can pack a bunch of fun into 72 hours in the Florida Keys.

Start With A Home Base

Our trip was our trip, so what you do and see will be different. We started with a budget, worked backward. But unless you have Keys' friends, plan to raid the treasure chest. An “affordable” hotel, with Monroe County’s 7.5% sales tax and the other fees and gratuities affixed to your stay, is likely north of two-hundred bucks a night.

And up. Fun costs you in the Florida Keys. Wendy on our trip pointed at the map and said “there.” Which in her world was an hour or so either way to Key West and Key Largo. We wanted a home base. She struck on Fiesta Key RV Resort & Marina at Mile Marker 70. Remember, we dug into our wallets. The resort’s Elite Suites, a master bedroom and a loft, a kitchen and an eastward facing porch along a quiet seawall, is pricey. But the place is spectacular, quiet and perfect for de-compressing, a rare splurge. Check the website for rates.

The Keys are also about traffic. US Highway 1, the Overseas Highway from Miami south, is long stretches of single lanes. You get race-arounds in towns and the occasional passing lanes. Highway 1 itself runs from south Georgia along the Atlantic side to Key West, 550 or so miles.

And while the deep turquoise waters, the incredible white of the birds or sea foam, the trade winds that go through you like ghosts, are all heart-stopping, time your Keys trip, if possible. We're talking random getaways here but with a sense of purpose. Off-season travel is also better on the wallet.

Note: Illegal passing and/or speeding in the Keys are no-no's, apparently, as patrol cars are everywhere. The cash register dings down here. And while the Lord did create the Florida Keys, He/She also set loose slow people to travel the full 113 miles of south US Highway 1 to selfie themselves at Mile Marker 0. It tests your faith.

No matter, we had settled on the dual-purpose Fiesta Key RV Resort & Marina in Layton, a small village situated between Islamorada and Marathon. Fiesta Key is a 28-acre island with secure gates just off the Overseas Highway. All seemed perfect, which hallelujah, turned out to be true. And the staff couldn't have been more pleasant. Watching the rising sun from that eastward-facing porch with someone you love and drinking hot black coffee, it's hard to imagine better things exist.

Popular photo attractions from roosters to iguanas, to iconic directional wooden signs, the Florida Keys offer some great photo opportunities. One photo opportunity you don't want to miss is the famous southernmost concrete buoy.

But it's the wandering we are after. And Fiesta Key RV Resort, part of a large network with the Encore company, was great as a home base.

On The Road To Paradise

Wendy and I decided Thursday after work was better than Friday early. We hit the interstate in a light rain, buzzed across Alligator Alley and wonder of wonders skirted the edges of Miami in light traffic, then on a toll road to Homestead, then south from Florida City on US Highway 1 to Key Largo.

Bingo, like you own the road. Florida and into the Keys is sweet, the breeze balmy and wonderful in your face.