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Florida Keys Road Trip | September 23, 2026

Hey Keys lovers! Everybody who has ever driven to Key West has the same moment.

Somewhere past Marathon, the land just stops. The mangroves fall away, the road lifts up, and for the next several minutes there is nothing on either side of you but water in about eleven shades of blue.

Nobody talks. Somebody in the back seat says "whoa." Somebody always says "whoa."

That is the Seven Mile Bridge, and this week it gets the whole newsletter. Partly because it deserves it.

And partly because today, a book about that exact drive comes out with that exact bridge on the cover. More on that below.

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❓ Keys Trivia

The Seven Mile Bridge is not actually seven miles long.

How long is it?

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.

📣 The Mile Marker Roundup

Another quiet week on the calendar, which means another week where the best stuff in the Keys is the stuff that happens every single day.

North to south, as always.

🤿 MM 102.5, Key Largo: Snorkel Out to Christ of the Abyss John Pennekamp was the first undersea park in the country, and about 25 feet down off Key Largo Dry Rocks there is a nine-foot bronze statue of Christ with his arms raised toward the surface. It has been down there since 1965. Boats go out daily, and a glass-bottom boat if you would rather stay dry. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park →

🐬 MM 84.5, Islamorada: Theater of the Sea Open since 1946, which makes it older than most of the people visiting it. Dolphins, sea lions, a lagoon, and the pleasant feeling of an attraction that has never once tried to be anything else. Theater of the Sea →

🐢 MM 48.5, Marathon: The Turtle Hospital A working sea turtle hospital built inside an old motel. The motel's swimming pool is now full of recovering sea turtles, which is the most Florida Keys sentence we will write this month. Guided tours only, so book ahead. The Turtle Hospital →

🌉 MM 47, Marathon: Walk the Old Seven Mile Bridge The original bridge, restored and closed to cars, open to people on foot and bikes. Walk it two miles out over open water to Pigeon Key. This is the Deep Dive below, so we will just say: go early. Pigeon Key →

🐓 MM 0, Key West: Breakfast at Blue Heaven Outdoor tables under the trees in Bahama Village, chickens wandering between your feet, and a lobster Benedict people plan entire trips around. Get there when they open or get comfortable with the idea of waiting. Blue Heaven →

🪦 MM 0, Key West: The Key West Cemetery Free, open during the day, and home to the most honest headstone in America: I Told You I Was Sick. Walk the rows for half an hour. You will laugh more than you expect to at a cemetery. Details →

🌴 Partner Spotlight

Stay in the Middle

Here is a thing people figure out on their third or fourth trip.

If you stay in Key West, you spend your days in Key West. If you stay in Key Largo, you spend a lot of time driving to things.

Stay in Marathon and everything is about an hour away in either direction. Islamorada to the north. Bahia Honda and Key West to the south. The Seven Mile Bridge is basically your driveway.

And late September rates are still sitting at the bottom of the year.

FloridaKeysResorts.com can help you compare places to stay across Marathon and the rest of the island chain, with nobody taking a commission out of the middle.

🧩 Deep Dive

The Island Under the Bridge

Most people cross the Seven Mile Bridge without ever noticing the little island underneath it.

Look to the side, a couple of miles out from Marathon, and there it is. A tiny key, about five acres, with a cluster of old wooden buildings painted in faded Caribbean colors, sitting under the older bridge like something that was left there on purpose.

That is Pigeon Key.

And it was left there on purpose.

When Henry Flagler's crews were building the original bridge, starting in 1908, they needed somewhere to live that was not a boat. Pigeon Key was in the right spot. So they built a work camp on it.

Hundreds of men lived on five acres in the middle of the water, for years, building a bridge out toward the horizon one concrete pier at a time.

When the bridge was finished, the island stayed. Railroad maintenance crews used it. Later the highway department used it. Later still, researchers.

The buildings are still standing.

Here is the part we love. You can walk there.

The old Seven Mile Bridge, the original, the one with the arches, runs alongside the newer one. For decades it carried cars. Then the new bridge opened in 1982 and the old one was left to the fishermen and the pelicans.

A few years ago it was restored and reopened for people on foot and on bikes. Two miles of it, from Marathon straight out over open water, ending at Pigeon Key.

No engine. No traffic. Just you, the wind, a few people fishing off the rail, and water on both sides so clear you can watch rays go by underneath.

It is the same view as the drive.

Except slow enough to actually see it.

📖 It's Out Today

Lost in the Keys: Mile Marker Thoughts

Brian Neff, the guy behind Florida Keys Road Trip, wrote a book.

It is about driving US-1 through the Florida Keys. Mile by mile. The bridges, the bars, the stops you mean to make and the ones you make by accident, and what goes through your head on a road that is mostly water.

It is out today.

And the cover is the Seven Mile Bridge. Blue water, pencil sketch. The Facebook crowd voted on it, the blue won in a walk, and a few of you insisted Brian's name go back on the bottom. It did.

If you have ever had that moment on the bridge where the land disappears and everybody in the car goes quiet, this book is about that moment.

It is a good one to read before the trip.

It is a better one to read after.

🍹 Four Things We'd Tell a Friend

Do not try to pull over on the Seven Mile Bridge.

There is nowhere to do it. Enjoy it from the driver's seat, and if you want the photo, park in Marathon and walk the old bridge instead.

Walk the old bridge in the morning.

There is zero shade out there. At 8 a.m. it is one of the best walks in Florida. At 2 p.m. it is a lesson.

Book the Turtle Hospital before you leave home.

Tours are guided and they fill up. It is 15 minutes from the old bridge, so they stack nicely into one Marathon morning.

Bring the good sunglasses.

The glare off the water on that bridge is serious. The driver needs them more than the passengers do, and the passengers are going to be looking at the view anyway.

🕰️ Lore & Legends

One Morning a Year, Nobody Drives It

Every spring, for a few hours on one Saturday morning, the Seven Mile Bridge closes to cars.

And about 1,500 people run across it.

The Seven Mile Bridge Run has been going since the early 1980s, right around when the new bridge opened. The lottery for a spot fills up fast. People come from all over the country to run one of the flattest, windiest, most beautiful and least shaded courses in America.

There are no spectators on the course. There cannot be. It is a bridge.

So for about an hour, the whole thing belongs to runners, the wind, and whatever is swimming underneath.

If you ever wanted to stand still in the middle of the Seven Mile Bridge and look around, that is the one morning of the year you are allowed to.

You just have to run to get there.

✅ Trivia Answer

About 6.8 miles.

The Seven Mile Bridge is roughly 6.79 miles long, which means for decades it has been rounding up in its own name.

Nobody minds.

"The Six Point Seven Nine Mile Bridge" was never going to sell a single postcard.

If you have driven it, hit reply and tell us who said "whoa" first in your car. We already know the answer is usually the person who has driven it ten times before.

And if you are not driving it this week, do this instead.

Find a photo of it. Any photo. Look at how much water is in the frame and how little road.

Then remember that somebody decided to build that. In 1908. With concrete, boats, and a work camp on a five-acre island.

Some roads get you somewhere.

This one is the somewhere.

Until next week, keep your windows down and your watch off.

The Florida Keys Road Trip Team