KEY WEST · WHERE TO STAY · MILE MARKER 0
You have already picked the island. What is left is a small argument about a square of streets barely a mile across: Old Town, where Mile Marker 0 stands at the corner of Whitehead and Fleming and the grid was built for feet, or New Town, where a rental car has somewhere to sit. Most of that argument turns out to be about parking, and parking here is metered at $3.00 an hour (City of Key West).
The season changes what a bed costs far more than it changes the walk to dinner. January averages a high of 75.8°F at the airport station; every weather figure here comes from NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals for station USW00012836, and the month-by-month case belongs to the Florida calendar. Room ranges live on our trip cost page, with the taxes that stack on top of them.
WHERE TO STAY · KEY WEST
Sleep inside the Old Town grid if you want to leave the car parked, because meters run $3.00 an hour and the garage runs $48 a day plus tax while almost everything you came for sits within one flat walk.
OLD TOWN: WALKABLE, PAID PARKING · NEW TOWN: EASIER FOR A CAR, TRIPS BACK IN · DUVAL LOOP: FREE, 18 STOPS
Go for: an Old Town base if your days are a beach walk, a sunset at Mallory Square and dinner within six blocks, all without touching a car.
Think twice before: booking non-refundable between mid-August and mid-October, the busiest stretch of a hurricane season that runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks September 10 (NOAA).
Parking: City of Key West · Beach fees: Florida State Parks · Bus: City of Key West · full sources at the end
On this page
- Old Town or New TownWhat each base is walking distance from
- Parking rates in Key West$3.00 at the meter, $48 a day in the garage
- Getting around without a carThe free Duval Loop and its 18 stops
- Cruise ship days in Key WestThe 2020 referendum and SB 1194
- A room near Mallory SquareWalking distance to the sunset celebration
- The best beach on footFort Zachary Taylor, $2.50 walking in
- How many nights in Key WestTwo, three or four, and where to put them
- Driving down from Miami155 miles, and an all-electronic toll road
Two facts do most of the work in every answer below. The island is flat, so distance is measured in minutes rather than effort. And it is small, so a base that saves you five minutes of walking usually costs you something you will notice more, whether that is a parking bill or a ride back into town. The island overview sits on our Key West guide.
Old Town vs New Town Key West: where to stay and what’s walkable
Old Town is the largest wooden historic district in North America, and it is also where the road ends. Mile Marker 0 stands at Whitehead and Fleming, the southern terminus of a US-1 that runs roughly 2,370 miles north to Fort Kent, Maine (published figures give 2,369 or 2,390, so treat it as an order of magnitude). Sleeping inside that district means sleeping inside the part of the island the guidebooks are about.
The district is designed to be covered on foot or by bicycle, and the island is flat and compact enough for that to be true rather than aspirational. For a base, that changes the arithmetic completely: you are not choosing a neighborhood with good transport links, you are choosing whether transport enters your day at all. A room six blocks from the waterfront and a room two blocks from it are the same trip with a different sunset walk.
New Town gives back the thing Old Town charges for: space for a vehicle, and easier access to the ordinary infrastructure of a week away, groceries included. What it takes is trips. The free Duval Loop bus calls at 18 stops through Old Town and does not serve the airport, so a base outside the historic grid means either a paid space at each end of the day or a ride in and a ride back, every evening you go out to dinner.
Old Town is the wrong choice for a few specific trips. If you plan to drive back up the Keys most days, to the two restored miles of the old bridge beside the Seven Mile Bridge with its car park at the Marathon end, the car stops being a liability and becomes the point. Same if mobility rules out a long walk in July heat, when normals put the average high at 90.2°F. The drive itself is a different plan.
Parking in Key West: rates and where to stay
The published rates, from the City of Key West Parking Department and subject to change: street meters at $3.00 an hour, the Old Town Parking Garage at $6 an hour or $48 a day plus tax, the Mallory Square lot at $7 an hour or $48 a day with a ten-hour maximum, and the Key West Bight lot at $5 an hour or $40 a day. Those are four different prices for the same square mile.
Stretch them across a stay and they stop being small change. Seven days in the garage at $48 comes to $336 before tax, which is a boat trip and two dinners. The Mallory Square lot prices a day at the same $48 but caps you at ten hours, so it is not a place to leave a vehicle overnight for a week. The Bight lot at $40 a day is the cheapest of the three day rates by a clear margin.
So the useful question is not where to park but whether to arrive with something that needs parking at all. A car that sits still for five days still bills you daily. Flying into EYW and walking, or driving down and returning the vehicle, both remove that line from the budget, and neither removes anything you would have done on foot.
The car still earns its place for the drive itself. It is the only way to reach the old bridge walkway, the beaches further up the chain and the long haul back toward Florida City, where US-1 becomes the only road. It is no help at all for Dry Tortugas, which has no road and no bridge and is reached by ferry or seaplane, 70 miles west.
One figure this page cannot give you: what a private space at a hotel or guesthouse costs per night. We found no rate we could verify, so we are not publishing one, and quoting the city garage as a stand-in would be misleading. Ask the property in writing before you book, and ask whether the space is guaranteed or first come. Getting around Florida covers the same question statewide.
Duval Loop free bus: route, stops and schedule
The Duval Loop is free, with no fare and no pass, and it calls at 18 stops through Old Town. It is the single strongest argument for a car-free base, because it turns the far end of the historic district into a five-minute problem. It does not serve the airport, so plan an arrival transfer separately.
The timetable is where we have to be straight with you. One source we read gives every 20 minutes, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Another gives every 30 minutes from 6 to 10 a.m., then every 15 minutes until midnight. We could not reconcile the two, and an earlier version picked one and stated it as fact, which was wrong. Read the sign at the stop, or ask the city, before you count on a late return.
Key West cruise ship days: schedule and current rules
In November 2020, Key West 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. The vote passed on all three questions.
Those limits were then nullified. Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 1194, under which a local ballot initiative or referendum may not restrict maritime commerce in Florida ports, and the law was written to apply retroactively to the November votes. The referendum result stands in the record; it no longer governs the dock.
For a bed near the waterfront, the practical reading is that no voted ceiling now limits how many passengers step ashore on a given morning. We are not publishing a ship calendar, because a schedule read in September is not a schedule in March. Check the port’s arrivals for your dates when you book, and if the answer matters to you, put a few blocks between your room and the dock.
Getting to Key West: flying into EYW or driving US-1
Key West has its own airport, EYW, on the island itself, which is the shortest version of arriving anywhere in the Keys. By road, Miami to Key West is about 155 miles and close to 3 hours 40 minutes without stops. The Overseas Highway portion runs 113 miles, its mile markers counting down from about 126 at Florida City to 0. With stops, budget six to eight hours.
From Miami the usual route south is the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, an all-electronic toll road with no cash booths, as far as Florida City. US-1 is the only road from there down. For a rental that means settling the transponder question at the counter rather than at the first gantry, a detail our getting-around guide spells out for the whole state.
How you arrive should decide your base, not the reverse. Fly into EYW and an Old Town room with no parking is simply cheaper and closer, with the free Loop covering the gaps. Drive down and you arrive holding a vehicle that costs $40 to $48 a day to store, which is the moment a New Town base, or a property with its own space, starts to pay for itself. Flight options sit on their own page.
How to get to Fort Zachary Taylor beach on foot
Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park holds the beach most often called the best on the island, and it is 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 vehicle or motorcycle, and $2.50 on foot or by bicycle. The park opens 8 a.m. to sundown, 365 days a year. The fort closes at 5 p.m.
That $2.50 walk-in rate is the clearest number on this whole question. A car-free base turns a beach day into a $2.50 line item instead of a $48 garage day plus a $6 gate, and the sea off Key West averages 76.5°F in January and 88.7°F in July as a mean of daily maxima (Open-Meteo, 2015-2024). Go in the morning if you want the fort too, and stay for the sundown closing if you do not.
Where to stay near Mallory Square, Key West
The Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square runs every night of the year, weather permitting, beginning about two hours before sunset and holding until dusk has faded. That start moves with the season: the sun sets around 6:01 p.m. in mid-January and around 8:19 p.m. in mid-July (sunrise-sunset.org, times converted to Eastern), so the buskers are claiming their patch at four o’clock in winter and past six in summer. A bed inside the grid means a five-minute walk back, rather than $7 an hour in the Mallory Square lot.
How many nights in Key West, and where to stay
Two nights: Old Town, no car if you can arrange it, and one sunset. Three: the same base, with a morning given to Fort Zachary Taylor and the fort before its 5 p.m. close. At four or more, the Dry Tortugas day becomes reasonable, and it sets your address for you. The Yankee Freedom III sails at 8 a.m. with check-in before 7:30, the 2026 adult fare is about $250 including park entry, snorkeling gear, breakfast and lunch, and it sells out weeks ahead.
An extra night on this island does not buy more miles. It buys a second sunset and the slack to lose an entire day to a boat, which is what a 70-mile crossing costs you. Book that ferry a month out, then choose a room you can reach the dock from at 7:30 in the morning without a car, and the parking question answers itself. Nightly ranges and the taxes added to them sit on our Florida trip cost page.
Sources & data for this guide
- Parking rates: meters, Old Town Garage, Mallory Square and Key West Bight lots · City of Key West Parking Department · checked Sep 14, 2026 · rates change
- Old Town as the largest wooden historic district in North America, and its walkability · City of Key West and local guides · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Duval Loop free service and 18 stops · City of Key West and Car-Free Key West · checked Sep 14, 2026 · the two published timetables disagree (every 20 min, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. versus every 30 then 15 min, 6 a.m. to midnight) and we have not reconciled them: read the stop sign
- Fort Zachary Taylor entry fees and hours · Florida State Parks · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Sunset Celebration nightly schedule · sunsetcelebration.org · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Sunrise and sunset times, 15th of the month, converted to Eastern · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 14, 2026
- January and July normals (75.8°F, 90.2°F) · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020, station USW00012836, Key West International Airport · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Sea surface temperatures, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 14, 2026
- November 2020 cruise referendum and SB 1194 preemption · Florida Politics and Seatrade Cruise · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Road distance and drive time from Miami, all-electronic Turnpike extension, 113-mile Overseas Highway · Florida Turnpike and AARoads · checked Sep 14, 2026 · drive times indicative
- Mile Marker 0 and the length of US-1 · Atlas Obscura and Key West travel guide · checked Sep 14, 2026 · sources give 2,369 and 2,390 miles
- Dry Tortugas access, ferry departure and 2026 fare · National Park Service and Yankee Freedom · checked Sep 14, 2026
- Hurricane season dates and September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center
- No verified rate exists in our notes for private parking at lodgings: we could not read one, so none is quoted · ask the property before booking