Though you can complete the one hundred miles between Key Largo and Key West in a couple of hours, last year my wife, Julie, and I marked off five full days to explore. We planned a slowpoke road trip, hunting down off-the-beaten-path Florida Keys restaurants, lodgings, and attractions. In other words, the Keys visitors often miss. We had a few guidelines for our search. Targets had to be off the main U.S. 1 drag, a.k.a. the Overseas Highway, or, in the case of Key West, off overhyped Duval Street. Or they had to offer something special despite an Overseas Highway address. “And anything with a billboard is off the list,” Julie suggested. Five days of meandering later, we had a deeper—and even better—impression of an archipelago we’d already grown to love.
Right out of the gate, as Highway 1 leaves the mainland south of Miami, we took a left-hand turn just past Homestead, onto Card Sound Road. Most Keys visitors continue south on U.S. 1, but this alternate route rises over verdant grass prairies, the horizon studded with dark green hardwood hammocks and veined with turquoise waters. The road slices the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge, home to
