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There is one road in, one airport, and one boat. Which you choose mostly decides whether you spend your trip looking for parking.
How to get to Key West: the four ways
- Drive US 1, the Overseas Highway. Key West is 159 miles from Miami, and the last 127 of them are US 1 from Florida City, counting down the mile markers.
- Fly to Key West International (EYW), which has nonstop flights from Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, the New York airports, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Tampa, Orlando and more.
- Take the ferry, the Key West Express from Fort Myers Beach: about 3½ hours, passengers only, and it docks in Old Town.
- Take the bus: Greyhound from Miami, 4½ hours at the quickest, or the public buses with a change in Marathon.
Each is below, with Fort Myers to Key West and how far Key West is from the cities people drive from.
Driving: US 1, and the mile markers are the addresses
The Overseas Highway is US 1, and Key West is Mile Marker 0 — the southern end of a road that starts in Fort Kent, Maine. It is 159 miles from Miami by the Monroe County visitor office’s count. The first 50 or so, to the start of the Keys, take about an hour; the mile markers begin at 127 just south of Florida City and count down to zero.
The Florida Turnpike on the way down is electronic toll only — SunPass, a compatible transponder or toll-by-plate, with no cash booths. The Card Sound Road toll is cashless too.
The thing to understand before you set off is that the mile markers are the address system. Small green signs every mile are how businesses, marinas and dive shops the length of the Keys tell you where they are. A place described as “MM 47 oceanside” is giving you a complete address. Learn to read them and the Keys stop being confusing.
The drive crosses 42 bridges, the longest being the Seven Mile Bridge west of Marathon, running alongside the remains of Flagler’s railroad bridge from the early 1900s with the Atlantic on one side and the Gulf on the other. It is the good part. The stops worth making on the way down, mile marker by mile marker, are here.
It is also mostly two lanes, which is the part people underestimate. There is no overtaking lane and no alternative route. One slow RV sets the pace for everyone behind it for as long as it wants to, and the county’s visitor office tells drivers to travel off-peak and allow enough time. Budget time rather than distance.
Getting to the Florida Keys is the same drive, only shorter. The Keys begin where the mile markers do, just south of Florida City: Key Largo is the first of them, then Islamorada, Marathon and the Lower Keys. Miami-Dade’s Route 301 bus stops at Key Largo at Mile Marker 98, Islamorada at 74 and Marathon at 50.
How far is Key West?
By road to Mile Marker 0, as the OpenStreetMap car router measures it:
| From | Miles |
|---|---|
| Miami International Airport | 159 |
| Fort Lauderdale airport | 185 |
| Naples | 239 |
| Fort Myers | 298 |
| Orlando | 393 |
| Tampa | 421 |
The Miami figure matches the county visitor office’s 159. Every one of these routes ends with the same 127 miles from Florida City, and that stretch, not the mileage before it, is what decides your arrival time.
Flying: EYW, and it is across the road from the beach
Key West International sits on South Roosevelt Boulevard, directly across from Smathers Beach — near enough that the beach’s soundtrack is the approach.
It is a small airport and that cuts both ways: you are out of it in minutes, and there are fewer seats, which shows up in fares. If flights into EYW price badly, the usual alternative is to fly to the mainland and drive down, which puts you back on the two-lane road above.
The airport’s own list of nonstop routes:
| Airline | Nonstop from |
|---|---|
| American | Miami, Charlotte, Dallas, Chicago O’Hare, New York LaGuardia, Philadelphia, Washington National |
| Delta | Atlanta, New York LaGuardia |
| United | Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare |
| JetBlue | Boston, New York JFK |
| Breeze | Tampa, Orlando |
| Allegiant | Tampa, St. Pete-Clearwater, Orlando Sanford, and a run of smaller cities |
Routes and seasons move, so check the airline for your dates. There is no nonstop from Fort Myers.
Is there a ferry to Key West? Yes: the Key West Express
There is one ferry to Key West, the Key West Express from Fort Myers Beach, and it sails all year, on a calendar that varies by date. Its boarding information says to plan on approximately 3.5 hours between ports; its FAQ puts the crossing at 3.5 to 4 hours, depending on the weather and the sea.
It docks at 100 Grinnell Street, in Old Town — the same terminal the Dry Tortugas ferry leaves from, so the hotels near the ferry terminal are the hotels near the Key West Express too. That is walking distance from almost everything, and it means you can do the whole trip without a car — which, given what parking costs here, is the strongest argument for it.
There is no car ferry to Key West
The Key West Express is a passenger ferry. It carries you, two carry-on bags, a standard bike for $100 round trip and a pet in a carrier for $60 round trip, but not a car. The car stays at the Fort Myers Beach terminal, 1200 Main Street, for $20 a day, and the operator has no parking at the Key West end; paid city parking is across the street. To have a car in Key West you drive it down, and you do not need one once you are here.
It leaves Fort Myers Beach at 8 a.m. and Key West at 6 p.m.
| Round trip | Adult | Senior (62+) | Junior (5–12) | Child (4 and under) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full fare, refundable less a fee | $194 | $184 | $135 | $85 |
| 8 days ahead, Mon–Thu, non-refundable | $170 | $170 | ||
| 8 days ahead, Fri–Sun, non-refundable | $180 | $180 |
One way is $145 for adults and seniors, $120 for juniors and $60 for small children. Changing or canceling costs $25 a person three or more days out, $40 within two days and $60 on the day or for a no-show, on any fare. Parking at the Fort Myers Beach terminal is $20 a day per vehicle.
The boarding rules are strict enough to matter:
- Boarding opens 60 minutes before departure.
- You must be aboard no later than 30 minutes before departure.
- From Fort Myers Beach, boarding begins 7 a.m., aboard by 7.30 a.m.
- From Key West, boarding begins 5 p.m., aboard by 5.30 p.m.
Miss the 30-minute deadline and you have missed the boat, not just the line.
Two carry-on-size bags each is the allowance. A standard, non-motorized bike goes aboard for $100 round trip; e-bikes and anything battery-powered do not go at all. The sailing calendar varies by date, so pick your dates on the operator’s booking page before you build the rest of the trip around them.
One quiet detail: the ferry terminal’s own parking lot at 100 Grinnell Street has nineteen spaces. If your plan involves leaving a car at the Key West end, that is not the plan.
On the way home there is nowhere to leave bags: the operator has no lockers and cannot hold luggage at either terminal or aboard, and points you to Paradise Porters or your hotel. A bag beyond the two carry-ons, or one up to 27 by 21 by 14 inches, is $40 round trip.
Fort Myers to Key West
Two real choices, and the boat is the quicker one.
- By ferry: the Key West Express leaves Fort Myers Beach at 8 a.m. and is in Key West about 3½ hours later, and it sails back at 6 p.m. The fares and boarding times are above.
- By road: about 300 miles, 298 from downtown Fort Myers by the OpenStreetMap car router, because the road crosses the state to Florida City before it turns down US 1. The ferry operator puts the drive at 5 hours 15 minutes in good conditions, about two hours longer than the boat; the router, without traffic, gives about 6½. Either way the last 127 miles are the Overseas Highway.
- By air: the Key West airport lists no nonstop from Fort Myers.
By bus
Greyhound runs from Miami to Key West, at least three trips a day and 4 hours 30 minutes at the quickest. In Miami it boards at the Miami Intermodal Center by the airport, at Golden Glades and on Miami Beach; in Key West it stops in front of the airport terminal, at 3439 South Roosevelt Boulevard.
The public buses reach Key West too, with one change. Miami-Dade’s Route 301, the Dade-Monroe Express, runs from Florida City through Key Largo, Tavernier and Islamorada to Marathon, 2 hours 10 minutes on its weekday timetable. At Marathon’s Sombrero Road stop, Mile Marker 50, it meets the City of Key West’s Lower Keys Shuttle, which runs every day to Whitehead and Eaton Streets in Old Town in about two hours. The Lower Keys Shuttle’s stops, times and fares are on the getting-around page.
Which one
Coming for the day from Miami: it can be done, at about fifteen hours for six on the island, and the day-trip page compares the bus tour, the public bus, driving and flying.
Coming for three days or fewer, with no plans up the Keys: fly or take the boat, and do not rent a car. Everything in Old Town is walkable and the money you would spend on parking buys a sunset sail.
Coming for a week, or stopping at Bahia Honda and the reef on the way: drive, but park the car once when you arrive and leave it there.
The mistake is driving down, keeping the car in Old Town, and paying $48 a day for somewhere to put a vehicle you are not using. So if you drive, the first night’s question is where the car sleeps: a place with its own parking, which Booking.com lists at the end of this page, or an area where you will not need the car at all. Once you are here, the things-to-do list has what there is and the one fact that decides each.
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