Visiting Key West Florida: A Family Travel Guide

If you have Military Base Access this is a Good Budget Friendly Option with space for a family

This is the spot for breakfast. Good food and sitting outside in the jungle covered canopy was awesome. Get there early because this place fills up for breakfast.

This restaurant has the Cuban food and influence you are looking for when visiting Key West. Good carribean cooked food at no extra cost. It is off the beaten path a tad bit. This is Definitely a local food fare spot.

We stumbled across this place out on a loosely planned day and was hungry for lunch. Did a quick google search for Cuban food and boom we landed here while walking around. Very good Cuban sandwich with lots of flavor and not too expensive. Definitely would go back to this place.

By the time you have been driving all day, for us it was about 300 miles to this place and we stopped at Island Fish Company for lunch. Perfect place to stop by boat too. Big tables and no crowd is a double thumbs up for us. Perfect place to stop before you get into the crowded city hustle of key west. The food was good and the girls loved sitting by the water. The palapa roof and open deck seating with crystal clear water for you to gaze upon was very soothing. The girls loved looking at all the fish in the water and trying to feed them.

You can’t go to key west without getting some key lime pie from this bakery. Key lime pie is the official dessert of Florida and also Key West /The Conch Republic. We did snag some regular key lime pie when visiting. But I have never seen it frozen, dipped in chocolate and served on a stick! For this amazing contraption you have to go visit the Key Lime Pie Bakery.

The Hemingway House (museum) is famous for not only the award winning author Ernest Hemingway but for 6 toed cats. Hemingway has achieved the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Nobel Prize in Literature. They have a guided tour that lasts around 30 minutes through the house. You are free to walk around the house grounds and explore the garden and tropical flowers on the property. This was the most exciting experience for the girls because they got to pet the cats with 6 toes. The staff says there are around 60 cats on the property. This was an awesome place to explore and experience because of the rich history of the island and the impact Hemingway has left on American literature.

The Light House museum is across the street from the Hemingway House. The lighthouse is 120 years old and has 88 steps to the top. You can get the best view of the island and the ocean at this location. The girls learned about all the things a light house keeper was responsible for. Addy learned how the lenses were made different and why there are multiple lighthouses along the reef system in Florida. This knowledge would follow us to sailing down the Pacific Coast of the USA.

The key west aquarium has all the normal things an aquarium would have on a smaller scale. Great stop for the kids especially the girls because they love the ocean creatures. The touch tank had local star fish, hermit crabs and sea urchins. this is a good stop to experience the local aquatic animals that are native to the Florida Keys.

This was a fun tour to grab ice cream and hit the tour. You get to ride the train through the island and they give you a short description of historical and funky land marks. I suggest doing this first. You will get an idea of where things are and how far apart everything is so you can use your time the best while visiting the island.

This was my favorite place!! Once a pirate always a pirate! The museum was all about the shipwrecks along the reef system and the ghosts that come with them. Awesome place with historic artifacts and treasure! It will definitely keep the kids entertained. Don’t forget to climb the tower and signal the pirate conch horn!

This discovery center has a display and an educated learning experience on how to help coral survive and thrive. The other big element they learned was all about lion fish. Lion fish are naturally in the Pacific Ocean. People bought them for fish tanks and they were released into the reef system in the Atlantic by disposing of them incorrectly. They are bad for the reefs in the Atlantic for many reasons and should be harvested when you see one.

This area of town has been doing an off-the-cuff celebration daily since the 1960s for sunset. The sunset celebration has many street performers that come to the square 2 or 3 hours early to get the party started. This is a local hang out spot and as the saying goes “see you at sunset” comes true. I have seen many worthwhile sunsets in my day but the Key West vibe and street performers make it the most enduring.