Our first full day in the Keys we hung around the KOA and enjoyed the beach and pool and gave B some well deserved rest. Looking at the forecast we saw the coolest cloudiest day was Tuesday so we chose that day to go to downtown Key West and do the tourist thing.

It’s very difficult to find RV parking in Key West so we were grateful for the inside scoop to park at the back side of the old Sears building and then walk or Uber or rent a golf cart for the day. There was a golf cart rental less than a mile away so that worked out well for us.

We loved all the palm trees and historic houses and just being tourists.

Our first stop was of course the Southernmost point! It’s best to go first thing in the morning because it can get very crowded.

Make sure to read the plaques around that area – there’s some very interesting reads.

We strolled around that area for a bit:

And then checked out the Higgs Beach and Rest Beach

The wild roosters all around the city really cracked us up! They were everywhere.

The Keys are not full of big,beautiful, soft sand beaches. In Key West (and all the Keys we saw) there are just a few tiny little beach areas per island… with sand they’ve brought in. I’m glad I read that before we went so I had the right expectations! There’s lots of sea grass but the water is so nice and clear. AB made sure to walk down the stairs to dip her toes in and couldn’t wait for more swim time the rest of the week!

Next up was Key Lime Pie at Kermits!

It was so delicious!

And then we enjoyed strolling along the historic pier checking out the boats, yachts, cruise ships, birds, and fish.

They feed tarpon at certain times of day and they are huge! We didn’t catch that but we did see a fisherman cleaning his fish and attracting the pelicans and fish. It was so interesting to see the pelicans “eat” up close. The Lord has a sense of humor! It was ridiculous watching them swallow those fish.

We made sure to try some conch fritters and check out the stores near Mallory Square

We went to Ernest Hemingway’s house next with the famous 6 toed cats:

There was some great antique pieces to admire in the house and great history lessons there. One thing I learned was that Ernest Hemingway was a war correspondent during WWII and on DDay he watched from a boat through field glasses and his wife Martha would go ashore with the ambulance teams. She was one of only 5 people (and the only woman) to report Dday directly from Normandy Beach.

We chose the Hemingway house over Truman’s Little White House mostly because we found parking by Hemingways and couldn’t find any by the Truman Annex. Across from Hemingways there’s a lighthouse you can climb up for a look over the city and a lighthouse keepers museum.

There’s a great playground at Truman Waterfront Park.

That whole area is very pretty with lots of green space to run or picnic. We love how they built the playground around the tree trunks!

After an early dinner at Duffys (it was okay…nothing to write home about) … we headed to the grocery store, returned the golf cart, and then took Winnie back to Sugarloaf. We left downtown before any of the rowdiness starts and we were grateful for the cooler weather so we didn’t have to witness the famous Key West nudity haha. We did see the best sunset as we left but didn’t catch a pic!

Thanks for the fun day Key West!