Staying & Dining in Key West

Key West. Not traditionally for families, but there are things to keep the kids amused.

It's much cheaper to fly into Miami and drive down to Key West. I will say, however, the drive is tedious. For anyone who has seen the movie "True Lies," there's a scene that takes place on the Seven Mile Bridge. The bridge is very cool. You can see the remains of what was the railway bridge. That bridge was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1930s. It's scenic if you drive during the day, but our flight got in late and the drive was brutal; we didn't get to our hotel until 2 a.m. The kids held up surprisingly well.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn on Roosevelt. It's a very nice hotel. The room was clean, comfortable and we had a view of the pool. There's a restaurant adjacent to the hotel called In Kahoots, good place for breakfast. There's a shuttle depot next door to the hotel that will take you downtown. I would be interested in staying at the Concha Hotel next time I travel to Key West. It's a lovely hotel and right in the heart of everything. It's said that Tennessee Williams wrote his first draft of "Streetcar Named Desire" at the Concha.

There are conch shells for sale everywhere. Immigrants from the Bahamas in the 1800s were called "Conchs," and the term is still used to describe locals. There are "Conch Republic" souvenirs reminiscent of the mock "secession" of Key West back in 1982. Be careful buying jewelry. I found some cute jewelry only to see "Made in China" on the tag. I prefer buying local.

The main area downtown is Duval Street. This is where you'll find most of the shops, restaurants and bars. Local specialties include conch, yellow snapper and "pink shrimp," a local shrimp that is very sweet, tastes more like lobster. Of course, on every dessert menu, there is Key Lime Pie. In the downtown area, we had lunch at Red Fish Blue Fish, very good seafood and kid-friendly. We also had lunch at Crabby Dick's, very good. Dine outside, it's on the second floor and there's great people-watching below. The original Margaritaville, made famous by Jimmy Buffett is on Duval. Very touristy. There was a long wait for a table, but we sat at the bar and ordered off the menu from there. For late night dining, Jack Flats has very good food. There's also Sloppy Joe's, made famous by Hemingway. Portions of his original manuscript for "To Have and Have Not" were found at Sloppy Joe's. It's rumoured that the owner of Sloppy Joe's was the model for Freddy in "To Have and Have Not." Although there is a bar called "Sloppy Joe's" on Duval, the original site is around the corner and called "Captain Tony's.