December 25th, 2010
Key West – Key West, United States (usa flag pole mallory square, key west travel blogs)
A TripAdvisor™ TripWow video of a travel blog to Key West, United States by TravelPod blogger Gemma_doogal.
See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00bb-c79c-02e2?ytv4=1
Key West
“DAY 1 – We started the day in Florida City looking for cheap accomodation on the Keys. Everything was so expensive, in the range of $100 per night and upwards that we decided to go back to Walmart, buy a cheap tent and camp (although camp sites cost $40 per night!!). After buying a $20 tent we began our drive to Key West, with me as navigator. Luckily my job was made very easy as we basically just had to follow highway 1 south the whole way!
Driving over the Keys was fantastic, with the highway seeming as though it was ‘floating’ as we passed between each island. Our first stop was at a little ‘nook’ beach just off the highway on Key Marathon, where we had a packed lunch from our new cool box. For most of our lunch we had the little beach to ourselves and then a family arrived. Doog and I watched on silently as the little girl paddled into the water and then started to do a wee. At this point, any thoughts of going in the water myself vanished. The family all spoke Spanish – we thought we would be leaving that in South America but it seems as though many people have Spanish as their first languae in the US too, well in Florida at least!
We then got back in the car and drove on to Sombrero Beach at mile marker (MM) 50 (because there is only one main road, all landmarks or streets are marked by their distance from the most southerly point on Key West using mile markers). We got a little lost and ended up driving around some private roads first where there were some impressive houses on the bay front, each with expensive cars on their driveways and expensive yachts at their private moorings.
On entering Sombrero Beach there was a sign saying ‘Look out – Portuguese Man of War’, which put us slightly on edge, but the beach itself was stunning and so we spent a few hours relaxing, soaking up the sun and reading our books. It was also a great beach for people watching. Two gay guys set up camp next to us with their two chihuahuas. One of the guys was wearing very tight speedos with ‘Lifeguard’ written across his bottom. One of the dogs really like playing with his ball and every time it was thrown out into the sea it would swim after it and bring it back in his mouth, sounding like it was choking on every doggy paddle it swam.
This day was mother’s day, or as the American’s like to call it ‘mom’s day’ and there weere lots of families having BBQs and picnics on the beach. Just as we were about to leave, a woman wearing the strangest bikini I have ever seen came strolling past us. It was so tiny that it only just covered the bare minimum, with two teeny tiny triangles held together by thin string making up the top and possibly an even tinier triangle making up the bottom part. It caught everyone’s attention on the beach and everyone couldn’t help but stare at her.
After the beach we drove to Key West, crossing over the huge 7 mile bridge from Key Marathon. We checked into our $40 a night campsite, put up our 2 man Walmart tent and were pleasantly surprised by the size of it, you could fit another person in there easily! We then decided to drive into the centre of Key West and have a little look around. We found a car parking space in a road near the main pier and after 2 attempts Doogal successfully managed to reverse park into it only to find out from a woman who lived on the street that we could not park in that direction. We then noticed that all the cars were facing the same way on our side of the road and facing the opposite direction on the other side. We didn’t want to get a parking ticket for parking in the wrong direction, so Doogal turned around and did his reverse parking again — this time he managed it first time around.
We walked around the pier and looked at all the big boats there. There were lots of restaurants and bars lining the pier and everyone walking past us seemed to be holding a beer or some other drink, we decided to have one another night and so after looking in a few shops (run by overly tanned women …”
Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gemma_doogal/1/1274814024/tpod.html
Photos from this trip:
Road to Key West – 7 mile bridge
Dolphin mailbox near Sombrero beach
Manatee mailbox near Sombrero beach
‘Life guard’ and dogs on Sombrero Beach
Key West pier
Pier at Key West
American bike
A Key West greeting for Gem
The golden arches and the stars and stripes
First McDonald’s in the U S of A!
Key Lime Pie
Wooden house in Key West
90 miles from Cuba
Biker at southern most point
Wooden houses in Key West
Picket fence in Key West
Enormous can!
Crowd gathering for sunset
Sunset
Duration : 0:2:38
http://www.travelchannel1.com/greatamericanroadtrip/keywest.php Travel Channel 1 I Jann Scott and Great american road Trips Beaches now have a three part series on Key West alone mostly because of the affinity between boulder and Key West . A lot of us winter there as we do on the Mexican Caribbean and Hawaii. We stayed at the Southern Most Hotel and Resorts Properties voted Best Place to stay in. All Key West. You have to eat at Camille’s also voted best restaurant in Key West. We rented mopeds from Moped Hospital.It is the only way to get around Key West. Though I must tell you Ford(LINK) gave us an Expedition for our two months in the keys taping this series. It held all 28 pieces of equipment. All part of the Channel 1 Networks,