Overseas Highway

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Miami

   The Tamiami Trail was named for what it joined, Tampa and Miami, and it took thirteen years and an astonishing amount of dynamite to build. Begun in 1915 and opened in 1928, US 41 cuts straight west across the Everglades, one of the largest wetlands in North America, and it changed Florida by linking the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, though it also interrupted the flow of water across the Everglades in a way that scientists are still trying to repair. The road starts in downtown Miami as Southwest 8th Street, known to locals as Calle Ocho, the heart of Little Havana.

   Read the complete Miami write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Miami is where the day begins. Next is Key Largo.

2. 2. Key Largo

   Key Largo is the first of the Florida Keys, the one you reach after the long straight run down from Florida City, and it is also the biggest, stretching some thirty miles along the line of the old coral reef. The Overseas Highway, US 1, runs through its entire length, lined with dive shops, tackle stores, seafood shacks and motels. The town itself has about ten thousand people, and fuel, groceries and food are easy to find all along the road, which is marked by mile markers counted from Key West.

   Read the complete Key Largo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Key Largo comes up about 100 km into the recorded legs. Next is Islamorada.

3. 3. Islamorada

   Islamorada is a string of low islands in the Upper Keys, and the name, Spanish for purple island, is applied to a village that spreads over several of them along the Overseas Highway. The sea is on both sides, the Atlantic to the east and the shallow, glassy water of Florida Bay to the west, and from the road you can often see both within a few hundred metres. It bills itself as the sport fishing capital of the world, and the claim is not idle, with charter boats, tackle shops and marinas lining the highway and anglers heading out before dawn for sailfish, tarpon and bonefish.

   Read the complete Islamorada write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 126 km into the recorded legs you reach Islamorada. Next is Marathon.

4. 4. Marathon

   Marathon is the middle of the Florida Keys, a flat, tropical working town strung along Key Vaca and its neighbours, and the place where the Overseas Highway pauses to take a breath before the famous long bridge. About nine thousand people live here, enough for plenty of fuel, supermarkets, diners and marine shops, and most travellers stop for coffee and a pit stop before the next stretch. The sea sits on both sides of the road, turquoise on the Gulf side and a deeper blue on the Atlantic.

   Read the complete Marathon write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Marathon, about halfway. Next is Seven Mile Bridge.

5. 5. Bahia Honda

   Bahia Honda means deep bay, and the name is a clue to what makes this island special. Most of the Florida Keys are flat, fringed with mangroves and shallow, but here the water is deep enough close to shore that Henry Flagler's railway engineers had to build a long steel truss bridge to cross the channel. That bridge, completed in 1912 as part of the Overseas Railroad, carried trains to Key West until a hurricane in 1935 destroyed much of the line. The railroad's bridges were then converted for road traffic, and the old steel structure at Bahia Honda, with its girders overhead, was used by cars until the 1970s. Part of it now stands unused as a lookout, cut short in places, a rusty ghost above the water.

   Read the complete Bahia Honda write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bahia Honda comes up about 204 km into the recorded legs. Next is Key West.

6. 6. Key West

   Mile Marker 0 is a small thing to stand beside, a green sign at the corner of Whitehead and Fleming streets, but after about a hundred and thirty miles of bridges and causeways over water the colour of a swimming pool, it feels like a finish line in the most literal sense. Key West is the end of US 1, and the end of the road in the continental United States, closer to Havana than to Miami's downtown skyscrapers by a surprisingly small margin.

   Read the complete Key West write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Key West closes the day.