Things to Do in Key West: Hours, Prices, Hemingway House and the Dry Tortugas Ferry

KEY WEST · THINGS TO DO · MILE MARKER 0

US-1 runs out of island at the corner of Whitehead and Fleming, where the Mile Marker 0 sign closes a road that reaches about 2,370 miles north to Fort Kent, Maine. Most of what visitors come to do lies within a few blocks of that sign, on an island where the parking costs more than several of the tickets.

Old Town is flat and compact, so a day here is largely a walk between opening hours: 9 a.m. at the Hemingway house on Whitehead Street, 5 p.m. when the fort at the state park shuts, two hours before sunset when the crowd starts to gather at Mallory Square. The one exception leaves the dock at 8 a.m. and takes the entire day.

On this page

• Old Town on foot, and where Mile Marker 0 isThe walk, and what parking costs
• What time the sunset celebration startsMallory Square, every night
• The best beach on the islandFort Zachary Taylor, $2.50 on foot
• Hemingway House hours and ticket prices9 a.m. to 5 p.m., $19 adult
• A day trip to Dry Tortugas National ParkThe 8 a.m. ferry and its 2026 fare
• Free things to do in Key WestThe Duval Loop and the sunset
• Which month to visit Key WestKey West month by month

Getting here shapes the first day. From Miami the road south is the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, all-electronic with no cash booths, as far as Florida City, where US-1 takes over and the Overseas Highway runs its 113 miles with the mile markers counting down from about 126. Figure four hours from Miami without stops, six to eight with them. Flying skips the drive: Key West has its own airport, EYW, roughly 155 miles from Miami by road. Arrival and beds are covered on our Key West guide.

Things to do in Old Town Key West on foot

Old Town is the largest wooden historic district in North America, which in practice means the sightseeing has no turnstile. Frame houses with porches, shutters and tin roofs run street after street, and the walk between them is the attraction. Nothing here opens or closes, so the district works at seven in the morning as well as after dinner.

The marker itself stands at Whitehead and Fleming: MM 0, the southern terminus of US-1. Northbound, that same road reaches Fort Kent, Maine, on the Canadian border. Published lengths differ, 2,369 miles in one source and 2,390 in another, so call it about 2,370 and leave it there. Expect a short line of people waiting to be photographed under the sign.

Because the island is flat, the strongest argument for leaving the car parked is arithmetic. Street meters charge $3.00 an hour. The Old Town Parking Garage runs $6 an hour or $48 a day plus tax, the Mallory Square lot $7 an hour or $48 a day with a ten-hour maximum, and the Key West Bight lot $5 an hour or $40 a day. Those rates come from the city parking department and they do change.

Mallory Square sunset celebration: what time it starts

The Sunset Celebration runs every night of the year, weather permitting. It begins roughly two hours before sunset and continues until dusk has faded, which means the start time moves with the calendar. On January 15 the sun sets around 6:01 p.m., so the square fills from about four. On July 15 it sets at 8:19 p.m., and little happens before twenty past six. Those two times come from sunrise-sunset.org, converted to Key West’s clock.

What fills the two hours is a working street show, jugglers and escape artists and musicians and food carts, with the water and the passing boats behind them. The square also borders the cruise dock, which has its own recent history: in November 2020 voters approved three limits on cruise traffic, a cap of 1,500 disembarking passengers a day, a ban on ships carrying more than 1,300 people, and docking priority for lines with the best environmental and health records. Governor Ron DeSantis then signed SB 1194, which bars local ballot measures from restricting maritime commerce at Florida ports and was written to apply retroactively to those votes.

Fort Zachary Taylor: the beach and the entry fee

Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park occupies the southwest corner of the island, within walking distance of Old Town. Entry is $6.00 per vehicle for up to eight people plus a $0.50 county surcharge per person, $4.50 for a single-occupant car or a motorcycle, and $2.50 arriving on foot or by bicycle. The gate opens at 8 a.m. and closes at sundown, 365 days a year. The fort itself shuts at 5 p.m., ahead of the beach.

Florida State Parks calls this the best beach in Key West, and it is the one every island list names first. Water temperature is part of the case: the sea off Key West averages 76.5°F in January and 88.7°F in July, that pair from Open-Meteo’s marine model, 2015-2024, taken as a mean of daily maxima. Every air figure here comes from NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals at station USW00012836, the airport gauge rather than the shoreline: a January high of 75.8°F, 90.2°F in July. The month-by-month picture belongs to the best-time page.

Without a car, $2.50 is the whole cost of the day, and it removes the parking problem twice: no meter downtown, no vehicle rate at the gate. The gate hours are generous with a walk-in ticket. In mid-January that runs 8 a.m. until about 6 p.m., and in mid-July until roughly 8:20 p.m., which is a long stretch of beach for the price of two coffees.

We could not verify an entry fee or posted hours for the island’s other public beaches, so none appear here. Sand in Key West is split between city and state ownership, and the rules follow the owner rather than the shoreline. Ask the City of Key West before you build a morning around one of them.

Hemingway House in Key West: hours and tickets

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum opens 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for walk-in visits, every day. It stands on Whitehead Street, the same street as the Mile Marker 0 sign, a few blocks north of it. Arriving close to opening puts you ahead of the tour groups that work Old Town in mid-morning.

Admission is $19 for an adult and $7 for a child, free below the age of six, and walk-ins need no reservation. The cats come with the house: the museum’s account is that its polydactyl population descends from Snow White, a cat given to the novelist, and the museum is the only source for that lineage. An earlier draft of ours quoted a $16 to $19 range for adults, which was a misread. The adult rate is a single price.

Dry Tortugas from Key West: the ferry and the fare

Dry Tortugas National Park has no road and no bridge. It lies 70 miles west of Key West, reached only by ferry or seaplane, which makes it a full-day commitment rather than an afternoon out. Nothing else on the island asks for that much of your calendar.

The boat is the Yankee Freedom III. It departs Key West daily at 8 a.m., with check-in closing before 7:30 a.m. at the terminal. Miss that window and the ferry leaves without you, because the crossing has to make the return in daylight.

The 2026 adult fare runs about $250. It covers the park entrance fee, snorkeling gear, breakfast and lunch, so the day rarely needs more cash beyond a tip. Sailings sell out weeks ahead: book a month in advance at minimum, and treat the fare as a 2026 figure that can move.

A seaplane is the other way across. It shortens the crossing considerably and puts the reef, the shallows and the wrecks under the window on the way over, and it lands far fewer people on the island at a time. We carry no fare for it, having found no figure we could verify, so ask the operator directly when you compare the two.

That 7:30 a.m. check-in reshapes the evening before it. In July the Mallory Square gathering does not wind down until well after nine, a poor match for a pre-dawn alarm, so give the sunset a different night. Sleeping within walking distance of the ferry terminal also spares you the parking question at first light. Our Dry Tortugas guide handles the fort, the snorkeling and the campground.

Free things to do in Key West

The Duval Loop bus is free and calls at 18 stops through Old Town. Frequency is where our sources part company: one describes a 20-minute headway from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., another every 30 minutes from 6 to 10 a.m. and then every 15 minutes until midnight. Read the timetable posted at the stop rather than trusting either version. The Loop does not serve the airport.

Sunset costs nothing, and neither does the walk that gets you to it, the photograph under the Mile Marker 0 sign, or the wooden district in between. Nobody takes money at the entrance to Mallory Square. The performers work for the hat, which is a different arrangement from free, and worth a few dollars if you stood through a whole act.

Key lime pie is reported to have started in Key West in the late nineteenth century, and Florida named it the official state pie in 2006. Its filling leans on sweetened condensed milk because fresh milk and refrigeration were scarce in the Keys before the 1930s, so the recipe was built around the can. A slice is not free and we quote no price for it. Order it cold, and settle the meringue-versus-whipped-cream question for yourself: the island has never agreed on it either.

Sources & data for this guide

• Old Town as the largest wooden historic district in North America, flat and walkable · City of Key West and local guides · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Mile Marker 0 at Whitehead and Fleming, length of US-1 · Atlas Obscura and Key West travel guide · checked Sep 11, 2026. Sources give 2,369 and 2,390 miles, so we give the order of magnitude.
• Meter, garage and lot rates · City of Key West Parking Department · checked Sep 11, 2026. Rates are subject to change.
• Sunset Celebration timing, nightly and weather permitting · sunsetcelebration.org · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Cruise referendum of November 2020 and SB 1194 · Seatrade Cruise and Florida Politics · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Fort Zachary Taylor fees, park hours and fort closing · Florida State Parks · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Hemingway Home hours, $19 adult and $7 child, cat lineage · hemingwayhome.com · checked Sep 11, 2026. Our earlier $16 to $19 range was a misreading of a single price.
• Dry Tortugas access, 70 miles west, no road or bridge · National Park Service · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Yankee Freedom III departure, check-in and 2026 adult fare · drytortugas.com · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Duval Loop, free, 18 stops, no airport service · City of Key West and Car-Free Key West · checked Sep 11, 2026. The two disagree on frequency and span, so both are given.
• January and July air normals, station USW00012836 (Key West International Airport) · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Sea surface temperatures · Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015-2024 mean of daily maxima · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Sunset times for January 15 and July 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted to America/New_York · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Key lime pie origin and 2006 state designation · Britannica and Wikipedia · checked Sep 11, 2026
• No fare is given for the seaplane and no fee for the island’s other public beaches: we found no figure we could verify · ask the operator or the City of Key West.