Florida Keys

The sea here is as warm as anywhere in the continental United States, around 29°C to 31°C in summer and rarely below 22°C in winter. The beaches don't match the water. The reef offshore stops the waves that build sand, so much of the shore is mangrove, rock or shallow seagrass flats where you wade a long way before you can swim, and seaweed can wash up in quantity.

The exceptions are worth planning around. Bahia Honda State Park in the Lower Keys has the best natural sand and clear channels. Sombrero Beach in Marathon is calm and shallow. Key West has Smathers Beach and the rocky shore at Fort Zachary Taylor, which is better for snorkelling. Most visitors swim from boats, docks and pools, and spend their days on the water rather than on the sand.

Eating in the Keys means fish caught that morning. You find yellowtail snapper, hogfish, mahi and grouper grilled or blackened at waterfront shacks and marina restaurants, stone crab claws in the winter season, spiny lobster, conch fritters and conch chowder. Key lime pie is the regional dessert, and you'll find it argued over on every island. You can often bring your own catch to a restaurant and have it cooked for you.

Key West has the widest range. Its Cuban heritage shows in strong café con leche, Cuban sandwiches and bakery windows. It also has a handful of serious dining rooms in Old Town and plenty of tourist-priced bar food along Duval Street. Further up the chain, Islamorada and Marathon are mostly casual, dockside places with sunset views. The food is distinctive but narrow, and good value is hard to find.

Almost all the heritage is in Key West. Old Town is a district of wooden conch houses, eyebrow cottages and Victorian mansions with deep porches and shutters, shaped by wreckers, cigar makers and Bahamian and Cuban settlers. The Ernest Hemingway Home, with its six-toed cats, the Harry S. Truman Little White House, the lighthouse, the shipwreck treasure museum and the brick Fort Zachary Taylor make a pleasant two-day round, and the Southernmost Point marker draws a queue.

The most striking sight is Fort Jefferson, a huge 19th-century brick fortress on a tiny island in Dry Tortugas National Park. It is reached by ferry or seaplane from Key West. Up the chain, the old Seven Mile Bridge and a few small history museums are what's left of the railway era. There is plenty of charm, but not much depth.

Nightlife here means Key West, and in Key West it means Duval Street. The evening starts with the sunset gathering at Mallory Square, then moves into a long run of open-sided bars, rooftop decks and historic saloons, with live bands spilling onto the pavement. Bars stay open very late, people drink in the street, and the mood is loose, cheerful and unashamedly touristy. The lower end of Duval is also the centre of a long-established gay scene with drag cabaret.

The town is at its wildest during Fantasy Fest in October and at spring break. Away from Key West, Islamorada and Marathon have tiki bars and dockside happy hours that are mostly over by late evening. Real clubs are rare, so this is a bar-hopping place.

The Keys are a low arc of limestone and mangrove, and almost all the outdoor life is on or under the water. A coral reef runs parallel to the whole chain a few kilometres offshore. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park off Key Largo, Looe Key in the Lower Keys and the reefs around the Dry Tortugas are the main places for snorkelling and diving, along with wrecks such as the sunken naval ships off Key Largo. Much of the coral is heat-stressed and patchy, so the sea life often impresses more than the reef itself.

On the bay side, the shallow backcountry is among the most famous fishing grounds in the world, especially for bonefish, tarpon and permit, and Islamorada is its centre. You can kayak and paddleboard through mangrove tunnels, see tiny Key deer in the Lower Keys and watch wading birds, and the Everglades is within reach of Key Largo. On land it is flat, hot and humid from June to October, which is also hurricane season.

The Keys are really one long day trip, a drive down a single highway through a string of similar island towns. Staying in Key Largo or Islamorada puts Miami about an hour and a half away, with its Art Deco district, Little Havana and museums, and the farm and fruit-stand country around Homestead on the way. Driving the Overseas Highway between Islamorada, Marathon and Key West is a pleasant outing, but the towns don't change much from one to the next. From Key West, the boat to the Dry Tortugas is the classic day out. Beyond those, you won't find other towns, heritage sites or wine areas within reach.

The Middle and Upper Keys work best for families. Marathon has a sea turtle hospital you can tour and Sombrero Beach, which is calm and shallow. Between Islamorada and Grassy Key there are dolphin research and marine parks where children can watch or swim with dolphins and sea lions. Glass-bottom boats at John Pennekamp, sheltered snorkelling and fishing from docks keep older children busy, and Bahia Honda has the best family beach.

Key West is less suited. Much of Duval Street is about drinking, though the aquarium, the butterfly conservatory, the fort and the trolley tours fill a day. There are no theme parks, the drive from end to end is long, and summer heat and storms need planning around.

The Overseas Highway is the only road in. It is a single route of more than forty bridges, running about 180km from Key Largo to Key West, and much of it is one lane each way. It is a beautiful drive and you can't get lost, but traffic piles up on weekends and in the busy winter season, and a hold-up on a bridge stops everything. A car is effectively necessary to see more than one island. Buses run the length of the chain but too rarely to plan a trip around.

Key West is the exception. Old Town is compact and flat, and many visitors leave the car parked and get around on foot, by bicycle or by electric cart. Parking there is scarce. Boats are part of the transport, and many of the reef and backcountry trips leave from marinas.

Shopping is mostly a Key West stroll. Duval Street has rows of T-shirt shops, cigar rollers, hot sauce and Key lime products, and resort wear. The side streets of Old Town have more art galleries, local painting and photography, and a few boutiques selling island clothing, handmade sandals and jewellery made from sea glass and shells. Up the chain, shopping is limited to dive and fishing shops and roadside stalls selling shells. Nobody comes to the Keys to shop.

The Keys are expensive. Land is scarce, almost everything is trucked down a single road, and the winter high season from December to April fills rooms in Key West and Islamorada at some of the highest rates in the country. Waterfront dining, cocktails, charter fishing and dive trips all cost a lot. Marathon and the Lower Keys are somewhat cheaper, and summer is cheaper too, but that means heat and hurricane season. Fish sandwiches, Cuban bakeries and picnics help keep costs down, but there is no real budget version of a trip here.

Live performance here belongs almost entirely to Key West, and it has a small-town feel. The Tennessee Williams Theatre and a couple of small playhouses stage plays, musicals and touring shows in the winter season, and a local symphony gives a short programme of concerts. The everyday offer is live music in the Duval Street bars, from early afternoon until late. Most of it is singer-songwriters, island-style acoustic sets and cover bands, plus drag cabaret. Up the chain, live music means a guitarist on a tiki-bar deck at sunset. For anyone serious about theatre, opera or concerts, there is little here.

The Keys have no bathing tradition of their own, so for spa treatments you go to resort spas, and the best are on private islands and waterfront properties around Islamorada and the Lower Keys. What restores people here is the pace. Days revolve around boats, fishing and watching the sunset, and the quieter islands of the Middle and Lower Keys, where you can stay in small cottages on the water, are easy places to switch off. Key West is livelier, but early mornings in Old Town and the outlying keys are calm. Yoga classes and massage are easy to find, though rarely the reason anyone comes.