{"id":1495,"date":"2017-07-02T17:08:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T15:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelspotting.de\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2019-06-02T15:50:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T13:50:46","slug":"auf-dem-weg-zum-suedlichsten-punkt-der-usa-key-west-ueber-key-largo-und-bahia-honda-state-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelspotting.de\/en\/road-trip-to-the-most-southern-point-in-the-us-on-the-way-to-key-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Road trip to the Most Southern Point in the US: On the Way to Key West"},"content":{"rendered":"The most southern point of the US, the place that is too crazy for the mainland, a place with strong Cuban influences and its very own mentality. Key West has been given many nicknames. Even the route to Key West on the Overseas Highway with all the small islands and bridges, called Lower, Middle and Upper Keys, makes a cool road trip with many options:<\/strong><\/p>\n


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Heading to the Most Southern Point of the US: Key West and the Keys \u2013 Upper Keys, Middle Keys and Lower Keys \u2013 all of them reachable and connected by the Overseas Highway (No. 1)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Florida Keys are a vast collection of little coral islands called keys. The chain of islands starts in the southeast of Florida, 26 km south of Miami. Final point of this route is Key West, it takes about 4 hours to reach from Miami (266 km). The 181.9-km-Overseas-Highway is basically a long-streched collection of roads and bridges.<\/p>\n


\nThe Keys can be split into three groups: Upper Keys, Middle Keys and Lower Keys. Upper and lower in this case refers to North and South. This is also the order I use to describe a few highlights on the route.<\/p>\n

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Because the Overseas Highway is a mere 180-km-straight, addresses and places have a mile marker in their name. Addresses use a five digit code, the first three digits refer to the miles on the road (including position after decimal point), the last two digits refer to the location of the address: odd numbers are at the Bay of Mexico, even numbers at the Atlantic Coast. The mile markers start in Key West, this is where you find the number 0. The higher the number, the closer you are to the main land.<\/p>\n

One example: John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park address is 102601 Overseas Highway. This means it is on MM 102.5 at the Bay of Mexico. The first first important stop on this route is in the Upper Keys: Key Largo MM 91- 107.<\/p>\n

Key Largo and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park: Glass Bottom Boat Tour in the Park<\/h2>\n

Key Largo is one of the northern keys and relatively large, almost 53 km long. Of course there is the Overseas Highway, but Key Largo has a second connection to the main land (at the northern end of the island, Highway 905 to Florida City and the Everglades).
\nVery important in Key Largo are its surrounding Coral Reefs. These are protected as a State Park called John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. It\u2019s a paradise for divers and snorkelers. We did not do a snorkeling tour but a glass-bottom-boat tour. That means, the boat has a glass window at the bottom and you can see the underwater world from the boat.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s easy to organize: you just go to the visitor center, ask about the next tour and buy tickets. To shorten this: next time, I would go snorkeling instead. The boat tour is ok, quite nicely done but you don\u2019t get to see a lot. The engines are turned off, the boat bobs up and down in the water. You stand behind a barrier all the time and look through that bottom window. This means you are very likely to get seasick. On the way to the riff, they provide various information on what to do in that case. We bought one of these preventative medicine, took it and and did not have to throw up. Probably, the medicine did their job. But we were anyways feeling quite bad on the way back. Most people on the boat looked rather troubled. These problems with motion sickness have to do with the general situation of being in a solid room (the boat), that moves in the waves and the fact that everyone stands at the barrier and looks down to that window at the riff which is again solid and not moving. On the boat they say our brain loses its point of reference, cannot handle the situation and reacts with dizziness and motion sickness.<\/p>\n

To me, the size of the bottom windows turned out to be a flop. I expected huge windows where you can see large parts of the riff and the ocean. But that was not the case. The windows are two rather small windows where people gather around. Most parts of the ship are fairly regular.<\/p>\n

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A good thing about the tour was the audio guide. A female tour guide on the ship was an expert in recognizing and naming all the different fish. That was really interesting; her enthusiasm about it became very obvious.<\/p>\n

The snorkeling tour stopped in close distance. Next time, I would definitely book that. I think you get to see much more and don\u2019t get dizzy and sick.<\/p>\n