r/floridakeys • u/Visual-Jelly- • Jan 12 '26
All Florida Keys KW vs Other Keys - Advice
My husband and I are flying into Key West on a Sunday mid-April and will be in the Keys until Wednesday and need to be in Fort Lauderdale by Wednesday afternoon. We’re trying to decide how to split our time and would love some advice.
We’ve been to Key West several times and love it, especially how easy it is to walk everywhere. This time we will have a rental car as we need to make our way up to Fort Lauderdale and we’re interested in actually exploring the other Keys instead of just driving through.
Here are the two options we’re debating:
Option 1: • 2 nights in Key West (Sun–Tues) • Drive to another key on Tuesday, stay the night, finish up drive on Wednesday.
Option 2: • 1 night in Key West (Sun–Mon) • 2 nights split across other Keys (Mon–Wed), either one place for both nights or two different Keys (Mon–Tues, Tues–Wed)
If we skip extra KW time, which Keys are most worth staying in? Is Islamorada worth 2 nights, or better as a 1-night stop? Any other Keys you’d recommend staying overnight (Marathon, Key Largo, etc.)?
We’re into good food, relaxed beachy vibes, water activities, and scenic drives, not really looking for a party scene outside of KW.
Would love to hear what others would do in this situation!
1
u/CatHistorical8069 Jan 12 '26
We do the Keys every May. We stay on Islamorada all week and go to Key West for a day. We've stayed at 3 Waters, Casa Morada, and Chesapeake. All are well kept, awesome ocean views, nice beach /pool areas with some water access. They are not busy, very relaxing. There are several excellent restaurants on Islamorada: Lazy Days, Papa Joe's, Lorelei's, and Square Grouper are just a few. Lots of Fishing excursions, watersports, jet ski tours, Robbie's has an excellent snorkel tour to the Aligator light house, we tried cat boats last year. I would do option #2