10 Best Sights in The Florida Keys, Florida

While visiting Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, stop in at this colorful, 6,400-square-foot, interactive attraction, where you can experience a variety of Florida Keys habitats from pinelands, beach dunes, and mangroves to the deep sea. Walk through a model of the Aquarius—a unique, underwater, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory 9 miles off Key Largo—to virtually discover what lurks in the ocean's depths. Touch-screen computer displays, a dramatic movie, a 2,500-gallon aquarium, and live underwater web cameras show off North America's only contiguous barrier coral reef. You'll leave with a new understanding of the native animals and unique plants of the Florida Keys.

On Lower Matecumbe Key this popular village park is named for a local environmental activist. Its "beach" (really a typical Keys-style sand flat with a gentle slope) is best enjoyed at low tide. The nicest feature here is the elevated, wooden, ½-mile boardwalk that meanders through a natural wetland hammock. Covered picnic areas along the way give you places to linger and enjoy the view. Restrooms are at the north end. Weekends are packed with Miami day-trippers as it's the only public beach until you reach Marathon. Amenities: parking (no fee); toilets. Best for: partiers; snorkeling; swimming; windsurfing.

If you can't make it out to see Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park, this is the next best thing. Opened in 2013 by the national park's official ferry commissioner, this free attraction in Key West's Historic Seaport has an impressive (1:87) scale model of the fort; life-size figures, including one of the fort's most famous prisoners, Dr. Samuel Mudd (who was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln); and a Junior Ranger station for the little ones, with hands-on educational fun. The exhibits are housed in a historic site as well: the old Thompson Fish House, where local fishermen once brought their daily catch for processing.

On Monday, September 2, 1935, more than 400 people perished when the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United States swept through this area of the Keys. Two years later, the Florida Keys Memorial was dedicated in their honor. Native coral rock, known as keystone, covers the 18-foot obelisk monument that marks the cremated remains of some 300 of the storm victims.

For over 65 years, the Key West Garden Club has maintained lush gardens among the arches and ruins of this redbrick Civil War–era fort. You can see the impressive collection of native and tropical plants while meandering past fountains, sculptures, and a picture-perfect gazebo on a self-guided tour. The garden hosts art, orchid, and flower shows February through April, and volunteers lead private garden tours one weekend in March.

Check out the pretty palm garden next to the Key West Library, just off Duval Street. This leafy, outdoor reading area, with shaded benches, is the perfect place to escape the frenzy and crowds of Old Town. There's free Internet access in the library, too.

For cruise-ship passengers, this is the disembarkation point for an attack on Key West. For practically every visitor, it's the requisite venue for a nightly sunset celebration that includes street performers—human statues, sword swallowers, tightrope walkers, musicians, and more—plus craft vendors, conch-fritter fryers, and other regulars who defy classification. With all the activity, don't forget to watch the main show: a dazzling tropical sunset.

This 84,824-acre refuge was established in 1957 to protect the dwindling population of the Key deer, one of more than 22 animals and plants federally classified as endangered or threatened. The Key deer, which stands about 30 inches at the shoulders and is a subspecies of the Virginia white-tailed deer, once roamed throughout the Lower and Middle Keys, but hunting, destruction of their habitat, and a growing human population caused their numbers to decline to 27 by the middle of the last century. The deer have made a comeback, increasing their numbers to approximately 750. The best place to see them in the refuge is at the end of Key Deer Boulevard and on No Name Key, a sparsely populated island just east of Big Pine Key. Mornings and evenings are the best time to spot them. Deer may turn up along the road at any time of day, so drive slowly. They wander into nearby yards to nibble tender grass and bougainvillea blossoms, but locals do not appreciate tourists driving into their neighborhoods after them. Feeding them is against the law and puts them in danger.

A quarry left over from railroad days, Blue Hole is the largest body of fresh water in the Keys. From the observation platform and nearby walking trail, you might see the resident alligators, turtles, and other wildlife. There are two well-marked trails, recently revamped: the Jack Watson Nature Trail (0.6 miles), named after an environmentalist and the refuge's first warden, and the Fred C. Mannillo Wildlife Trail (0.2 miles), one of the most wheelchair-accessible places to see an unspoiled pine-rockland forest and wetlands. The visitor center has exhibits on Keys biology and ecology. The refuge also provides information on Key West National Wildlife Refuge and Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge. Accessible only by water, both are popular with kayak outfitters.

This beach and park were named after Cornelius Bradford Harvey, former Key West mayor and commissioner. Adjacent to Higgs Beach, it has half a dozen picnic areas across the street, dunes, a pier, and a wheelchair and bike path. Amenities: none. Best for: walking.

Possibly the most photographed site in Key West (even though the actual geographic southernmost point in the continental United States lies across the bay on a naval base, where you see a satellite dish), this is a must-see. Have your picture taken next to the big striped buoy that's been marking the southernmost point in the continental United States since 1983. A plaque next to it honors Cubans who lost their lives trying to escape to America, and other signs tell Key West history.