The Best Things to do in Key West on a Family Vacation

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Key West with Kids

Today was Key West Day on our family vacation and we were so excited to experience the family-friendly Key West. It is an hour drive, but the drive is it’s own adventure and experience in itself, so the time went quickly. We first drove over the 7-mile bridge. It was so nice to look out over the ocean.

Duvall Street

Our destination was Duval Street. Parking was easy to find on the street. We drove down to the south end of Duval Street and parked our truck there. The“Pay to Park” terminal was easy to use. After finding a good parking spot we set out to walk Duval street to stop at shops and art galleries. We found plenty of great things to do in Key West with kids!

Art Gallery

Side note: We love to take our kids to art galleries! We started going to art galleries in our own town just a small one. I created an Art Gallery Family Hunt Sheet you can download, that is specifically for young children going to an art gallery or museum. We talked through all of the questions and were lucky enough to talk to an artist that was there dropping off work. My boys loved it and ever since that hour visit to the small gallery in our home town, they like to go into galleries wherever we travel.

Mile Marker 0

There are so many great Key West attractions to choose from and I think we did a good job of finding a few that fit our needs. We stopped at Margaritaville for lunch because we are big Jimmy Buffet fans and although the food isn’t local we love the atmosphere and music.

After resting our feet for a while we continued on turning off of Duvall to go to the 0 Mile Marker location to take pictures. If you aren’t familiar, everything in the Keys is listed by Mile Marker. Our hotel was at Mile Marker 50 and a restaurant we were going to was at Mile Marker 82, so we knew it was 32 miles away.

At the end of Duval Street is Mallory square we went into a few shops and especially liked the shells, ships and chicken items. We spent so much time on Duval Street we didn’t have a ton of time at Mallory square. Many people like to watch the sunset at Mallory Square, but we still wanted to go to Fort Zachary to snorkel and swim.

Key West Marine Park

Our plan to snorkel at the Key West Marine Park where there is such great opportunity for interactive learning for our kids was not going to work today because of the choppy waves. Instead, we went to Zachary Taylor beach to swim and dig in the sand.

Fort Zachary Taylor

Fort Zachary Taylor is an old army post that is now a Florida State Park. A yellow flag was posted, this means there are medium hazard, light surf and or currents. The great snorkeling site, I had read about, would have to wait. Snorkeling was out of the picture for today, but we were OK with swimming and sunning. We noticed right away that the beach was full of stones. Not nice rounded stones, but jagged, large, kill my feet stones! Ok, so funny story, I have plantar fasciitis (foot pain) so walking on these rocks was super painful. Nonetheless, I made it to the water. Went into a swimming position as soon as I could and swam around with the kids. That is not the funny part.

The funny part was when I decided to leave the ocean and I realized how hard it is to move from a swimming position to a walking position, with feet that hurt. So, I literally couldn’t stand up. Then the waves started getting bigger and bigger. Now you can picture me rolling around in the surf while trying to get my feet under me. I’m not sure if my kids were laughing at me or crying because they thought I was hurt. I finally got up, with Marty’s help and got out of the ocean. I am just hoping we don’t find “Lady trying to get out of the Ocean” on Youtube!

Southernmost Point

After leaving Fort Zachary Taylor we stopped at the Southernmost Point. The boys and I jumped out of the truck and quickly snapped a picture while Marty drove around the block. The boys didn’t even have shoes on! After a fun-filled day in Key West, we headed back to Marathon Key to end our day.

Savannah’s Sweets in Marathon

We went to the hotel and ate some supper then went out to Savannah’s Sweets for ice cream. Hard packed ice cream is our absolute favorite. It is always an adventure of what flavors do they have, what flavors have I had, what new flavors should I try, what toppings are there and so on. There was a line the night we were there. I mean who doesn’t want ice cream after a hot day in the sun? And it is a great after-dark activity. We also liked that they had games available to play where Marty waited in line for the ice cream. We ate our ice cream and continued to play a while longer. I loved the fact that Savannah’s is also a gift shop. I loved all the cute kitchen items and kids games. It is a great place to spend an hour or so!

Back at the hotel, we sat outside in the community area. There were three or four other families were sitting together recounting their day, or eating a late dinner. We pulled out our trusty Uno game and played a few hands. Marty seems to always win, I really don’t understand his strategy. He does seem to win a lot, I need to watch him closer. Because it gets dark early we couldn’t believe it was only 9 pm. We ran up to the room, threw on suits and headed out to the pool and tiki area. I had my trusted Pina Colada, we played baggo and swam. This was just a perfect day!