Florida Keys

The African Queen is a historic steamboat located in Key Largo, Florida. Built in 1912, the vessel gained worldwide recognition after being featured in the 1951 film “The African Queen” starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Today, visitors can take a 90-minute cruise on the African Queen, exploring the beautiful waterways of Key Largo while learning about the boat’s fascinating history. The boat has been meticulously restored and is a beloved attraction in the area, providing a unique and memorable experience for visitors of all ages.

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Dry Tortugas National Park, situated about 68 miles west of Key West, preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated Florida Keys. Fort Jefferson, a massive but unfinished coastal fortress, is the largest brick masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere and includes more than 16 million bricks. The park, accessible by seaplane and boat, is popular for its abundant sea life, tropical bird breeding grounds and colorful coral reefs. Dry Tortugas National Park is part of the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve, which UNESCO established in 1976 under its Man and the Biosphere Programme.

Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, located near the southern tip of Key West, Florida. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. Construction of the fort began in 1845. The fort was built as part of a mid-19th century plan to defend the southeast coast following the War of 1812. Though it has been modified over the years, Fort Zachary Taylor was used during the 1898 Spanish–American War, World War I, World War II and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, lived in a house at 907 Whitehead Street from 1931 to 1939. Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvage wrecker, built the house in a French Colonial estate style. Construction on the house started in 1848 and completed in 1851. When Pauline first saw the house in deep disrepair, she labeled it a “damned haunted house.” However, she convinced her wealthy uncle to buy it for $8,000 for her and her husband as a wedding present. Today, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, is equal parts shrine to Hemingway and a historic house. The house, a National Historic Landmark, showcases Hemingway’s possessions, including his writing desk, hunting trophies and books. It is also famous for its resident cats, many of which are descendants of Hemingway’s original pet cats and are said to have six toes.

The Key West Memorial Sculpture Garden, located in Mallory Square, features bronze busts of locals who had had a significant impact on Key West, including Henry Flagler, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. It originally featured 39 bronze busts but has space to increase to 72 busts. The city of Key West established the garden and the criteria for inclusion in the memorial, which opened in 1997. “The Wreckers” monument stands at the Key West Memorial Sculpture Garden’s center.

Mallory Square is a plaza situated on the waterfront in Key West’s historic Old Town just west of the northern end of Duval Street, facing the Gulf of Mexico. It hosts the nightly “Sunset Celebration,” considered one of the city’s main tourist attractions. Every night, hundreds of tourists flock to the square — or one of the adjacent watering holes — to watch the sunset. The celebration includes arts and crafts exhibitors, street performers, and food carts. Adjacent to Mallory Square is the city’s cruise ship port, which opened in 1984. However, cruise ships must depart before the nightly sunset celebration.

The Seven Mile Bridge is perhaps the most famous bridge on the 113-mile-long Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys to Key West. The Florida East Coast Railway build the original bridge, initially known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, from 1909 to 1912 as part of its Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad. Following the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, the railroad, financially unable to rebuild the route, sold the remaining bridges to the government, which reworked it as a highway. A newer bridge, constructed from 1978 to 1982, replaced the original span, which largely remains in place.