Miami to Key West: Three Good Stops
Leaving from somewhere else? Change the start and see your stops right now — free, no signup.
About 160 miles down the Overseas Highway, and the only road in America where you drive 42 bridges over open water to get to the end of the country. Most people do it in one push and remember the traffic. Here is where we get out: a reef you snorkel from the road, the bridge you can walk out onto, and the best beach in Florida.
- 160 miles
- 3 hr 30 min driving
- US-1 S — mile markers count down from 106 to 0
- Possible in half a day, much better as two
There is only one road, so navigation is not the problem. Time is. US-1 through the Keys is two lanes for most of its length, with a 45 mph limit through the towns, one drawbridge and no way around anything — a single fender-bender at Islamorada can add an hour and there is no alternate route to take. Leave Miami before 8am or after 10am and never on a Friday afternoon in season.
The mile markers are how everyone in the Keys gives directions. They start at MM 106 just south of Key Largo and count down to MM 0 at Whitehead Street in Key West, so a restaurant "at MM 82 bayside" is 82 miles from the end and on the Florida Bay side of the road. Learn that and the whole drive gets easier to plan.
Two more practical notes. Fuel is cheapest before you leave the mainland and gets steadily worse the further down you go, so fill up in Homestead. And the sun down here is not the same sun — you are at the latitude of the Bahamas, on water, with no shade on a bridge. Reef-safe sunscreen, a hat and more water than you think you need.
Stop 1 — John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo
MM 102.5 · Key Largo · 2 to 3 hours
An hour and a bit out of Miami, the first state park in the country to protect a living coral reef. The reef itself sits six miles offshore inside the sanctuary, and the park runs glass-bottom boat trips, snorkel trips and dive trips out to it from a small marina — which makes this the one place on the drive where a person with no plan and no gear can be over live coral by lunchtime.
If you would rather stay on land, the park has two swimming beaches, mangrove kayak trails and a short boardwalk through hardwood hammock. Cannon Beach has an old wreck and some scattered ballast stones in waist-deep water a few yards out, which is a genuinely good free snorkel for children.
Why we put it first: boat trips leave on a schedule, in the morning and early afternoon, and they sell out in season. If the reef is the reason you are driving down here, book a slot before you set off and build the rest of the day around it — book the reef trips and Key West tours ahead. There is a modest per-vehicle entrance fee at the gate.
Stop 2 — Seven Mile Bridge and Pigeon Key, Marathon
MM 47 to 40 · Marathon · 1 to 2 hours
Halfway down, the land runs out and the road goes out over open water for nearly seven miles. Two bridges sit side by side here: the modern one you drive, opened in 1982, and the original Henry Flagler railroad bridge from 1912 alongside it, which carried trains to Key West until the 1935 hurricane tore the line apart.
The good stop is the Old Seven Mile Bridge. A 2.2-mile section from Marathon out to Pigeon Key has been restored as a walking and cycling path — you park at the Marathon end, walk out over the water with no traffic beside you, and look back at the Keys from a place cars cannot go. It is flat, it is exposed, and it is the single best photograph on this drive. Pigeon Key itself, the little island that housed the bridge's construction crews, has a small museum and its own hours; check them before you walk the full distance.
Marathon is also the right lunch stop and the natural place to break the drive: Sombrero Beach at MM 50 is free, sandy and has actual shade, and the Turtle Hospital nearby runs guided tours of a working sea-turtle rehab centre. An self-guided audio tour of the Overseas Highway earns its keep along this stretch, because the railroad story is everywhere and signposted almost nowhere.
Tell us where you are leaving from, when, and who is in the car — dog, toddler, EV, six-hour limit — and we will name the stops that actually fit. Your first trip is free, no card.
Stop 3 — Bahia Honda State Park
MM 37 · Big Pine Key · 1 to 2 hours
Twelve miles past the Seven Mile Bridge is the beach people picture when they picture the Keys, and almost nowhere else in the islands delivers it. Most of the Keys shoreline is mangrove or rock; Bahia Honda has real sand, shallow turquoise water on both the Atlantic and the Gulf side, and a shipwreck's worth of old bridge standing over it.
Calusa Beach is the sheltered one, good for small children. Sandspur is the long open stretch and the one to walk. From the base of the old Bahia Honda rail bridge you get the classic view back along the arches — the walkway on the bridge itself has been closed for years, so admire it from the ground and ignore anyone's out-of-date advice about climbing up.
Then it is 37 miles to Key West, past the Big Pine Key deer signs — the Key deer here are the size of a large dog and genuinely do wander onto the road, so the 45 mph night limit is not decorative. In Key West itself, park once and leave the car: Old Town is walkable, Duval Street is fifteen blocks end to end, and the sunset gathering at Mallory Square starts about ninety minutes before the sun actually goes down. Southernmost Point, the Hemingway House and the Truman Little White House are all within a mile of each other.
How we would time it
Day one: leave Miami at 7:30am, Pennekamp reef trip mid-morning, lunch in Marathon, walk the old bridge in the afternoon, Bahia Honda late for the light, into Key West for dinner. Day two: Old Town on foot in the morning while it is cool, and drive back up in the afternoon. If you only have one day, skip the reef trip, snorkel at Cannon Beach instead and you can still make Mallory Square for sunset.
Staying overnight in Key West is expensive in season. Marathon and Islamorada cost noticeably less and put you inside an hour of everything on this list, which is what we would do with a family.
Booking the rest of it
Almost everyone flies into Miami or Fort Lauderdale and drives. Compare EconomyBookings and GetRentacar before you book, and read the mileage terms — this is 320 miles round trip before you have driven anywhere in Key West. A convertible is the cliché and it is also a sunburn; if you take one, put the roof up on the bridges.
The three stops on a map
Stops in driving order. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
How long does it take to drive from Miami to Key West?
About 160 miles and three and a half hours without stops, all on US-1. In season, or on a Friday afternoon, allow four and a half — the Overseas Highway is two lanes with no alternate route around a delay.
What are the best stops between Miami and Key West?
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo for the reef, the restored Old Seven Mile Bridge walking path at Marathon, and Bahia Honda State Park for the best sand beach in the Keys.
Can you drive to Key West in one day from Miami?
Easily — it is a half-day drive. But the three stops worth making all take a couple of hours each, so a single day means picking one. Two days, with a night in Marathon or Key West, is the comfortable version.
Do you need a car in Key West?
Not once you are there. Old Town is walkable and parking is scarce and paid, so park at your hotel or a garage and leave it. You do need the car for the drive down, because there is no train and buses are slow.
Now let us do this for your drive
Every stop above is one we would take ourselves — but it is our day, not yours. Change the departure time, the driving limit, the dog in the back seat, the EV that needs a charger every 200 miles, and the right stops change with it. That is the whole thing we built: you tell us the trip, we name the three good stops, with the drive math already done.
Leaving from somewhere else? Change the start and see your stops right now — free, no signup.
Seeing your stops is free. The full plan — clock times, weather, what is open when you arrive — is free for your first trip, then 99¢ for three trips or $2.99 a month. If you just want to browse, we have stop-by-stop pages for thousands of routes.
We write one new drive a week — three real towns, the drive math, what we would skip. Leave an email and we will send them as they go up. No more than one a week, unsubscribe in a click.
Updated 2026-09-09. Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes which stops we pick — no business on this page paid to be here.