Family Vacation In Key West: 16 Kid Friendly Activities
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While Key West is often thought as a playground for adults, it’s actually very family friendly too! Discover 16 of the best things to do in Key West with kids in this family friendly guide.
Ten years ago, AJ and I were young, in love and recently married. One of our first vacations as a married couple was a Florida Keys road trip. We spent a few days in Key West enjoying cocktails at sunset and wandering Duval Street whenever we felt like it, with zero bedtimes or tiny humans to worry about.
So when we started planning a family trip to the Florida Keys 10 years later — two days in Key West followed by a week at a rental house in Marathon — I’ll admit I had a moment of “wait, can we actually do this with a 4 year old and a 2 year old?”
That pause didn’t last long…as my grandmother would say, we’ve taken our kids “all over tarnation,” including Hawaii (to both Aulani Resort and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park), several Utah National Parks, San Diego, Canada, the Outer Banks, Mackinac Island and more. So we figured we could find some fun for them in Key West too!
Rethinking Key West as a family friendly destination
Key West has a reputation as an adult destination. Ask anyone who’s been and you’ll hear about the bars, the bachelorette parties, the Duval Street crawl. It doesn’t exactly scream “family vacation.”
Despite Key West’s party personality, we had a wonderful time in Key West with our kids doing a lot of family friendly things! Ten years after our first trip to Key West as newlyweds, coming back with a 4 year old and a 2 year old (plus AJ’s parents and grandma) gave us a totally different, but equally wonderful, experience.
Key West’s reputation as an adults-only playground just doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s so much for young kids to see, do, and love, from six-toed cats to sunset street performers to chickens wandering around while you eat pie.
If you’re on the fence about bringing young children to Key West, here’s everything we did, what worked, and why I’d do it all again.
Getting Around Key West
Key West is small and walkable. For the most part, you can park your car at the hotel and then the only true mode of transportation you need for your visit is your legs.
But when you’re navigating a walkable place with little legs, and it’s hot, and your travel companions are prone to unreasonable meltdowns if they don’t have a nap, a golf cart is the way to go.
We rented a golf cart for our two days there and it gave us a lot of flexibility when it came to exploring and activities. We loved having the cart because it’s so much easier to find parking than with a full-size car. It also let us cover a lot more ground than we could on foot, without wearing out the littlest members of our group. Our 4 and 2year old didn’t need car seats, just buckled in and ready to go.
There are a number of golf cart rental companies in Key West with flexible rental options. A few highly rated options include:
If your kids are a little older, I’d actually suggest renting bikes instead — Key West is very bike-friendly and it would be such a fun way to explore as a family.
Practical Tips for Visiting Key West with Kids
- Best time to visit: The Keys are great almost year-round, but late fall through spring (November–April) tends to have the most comfortable weather and lower humidity. Plus, you’ll avoid peak hurricane season, which runs June through November. While we enjoyed visiting in the summer, it was really hot and humid and we had to take frequent air conditioning or swimming breaks. I would love to take our kids back in December to see the Christmas and holiday decorations!
- How many days to plan: Two days is enough to hit the highlights of Key West itself (like we did), especially if you’re pairing it with more time elsewhere in the Keys. If you want to add Dry Tortugas or more beach time, consider a third day.
- Getting there: Key West is about a 3.5- to 4-hour drive from Miami down the Overseas Highway. It’s a beautiful drive with lots of bridge views, but plan for stops with young kids.
- Where to stay: Renting a house further up the Keys (we had a home base in Marathon) and day-tripping into Key West is a great way to get more space and a quieter home base while still enjoying everything Key West has to offer.
- Sun protection: Between the golf cart rides, beach time, and boat trips, pack reef-safe sunscreen, hats, and plan for shade breaks. The Florida sun is no joke, especially with little ones. Check out my family beach vacation packing list for some of our favorite essentials.
- Book ahead: Popular spots like the Turtle Hospital tours, boat excursions, and golf cart rentals can book up, especially in high season, so reserve a few of these in advance.
Kid-friendly sightseeing tours
The Conch Train
We saw a ton of families riding the Conch Train around the island. This is a great option for kids who enjoy the novelty of a train while the parents sit back and let someone else drive.
There’s a lot to see in Key West, and this train ride covers the island’s most notable attractions. It starts near the port on Front Street and winds through Old Town, passing popular spots like the Hemingway Home and Museum, Sloppy Joe’s, the Southernmost Point buoy, and the beach. If you’re new to the island and want to get your bearings before exploring on your own, this is a great way to do it.
The tour guides provide general island information along with niche facts about Key West’s history, architecture, and culture, with a side of humor and the right amount of cheesiness.
The Conch Train runs every day starting at 9:00 am, with the last tour departing at 4:30 pm, and the tour itself is about 60 minutes. (This is not a hop on/hop off tour…you get one or two breaks to stretch your legs during the ride, so if you are looking for a more flexible tour experience, read about the trolley tour below!)
Old Town Trolley Tour
If you’re looking for a tour that lets you hop on and off at different stops, the Old Town Trolley Tour is the better fit. It’s run by the same company as the Conch Train, so it really comes down to which format works better for your family.
Instead of one continuous ride, the Old Town Trolley covers 13 stops located close to many of Key West’s main points of interest. Your ticket is valid all day, so you can hop off, explore at your own pace, and hop back on whenever you’re ready.
Trolleys come by roughly every 30 minutes, so you’re never waiting too long between stops, and the full loop covers about 13 miles and takes around 90 minutes if you ride it start to finish.
If you’re traveling with older kids or teens, you should also look into booking a Ghost Tour. Old Town Trolley’s Ghost and Graveyards Tour gives you an overview of Key West’s haunted history.
Stroll Duval Street
Duval Street is Key West’s main drag. While it’s geared toward the 21-and-up crowd, it’s still a fun street to explore during the day. (At night, several of the bars are 21+ only.)
We found it was easiest to walk Duval with the kids in the daytime, when the street is a little calmer and you can duck into souvenir shops, or grab a snack or some ice cream without the nighttime crowds. Our kids loved it because there’s so much going on to look at, from live music spilling out of open-air bars to bachelorette parties in full costume. For a 4 year old, that’s basically a parade!
For eating and drinking, I’d recommend stepping just off Duval itself rather than dining right on the main drag. You’ll likely find a spot that is less crowded and more family friendly, but just as delicious.
Travel Tip!
Did you know that Key West is home to nearly 400 restaurants? For a full rundown of where to eat, check out our Key West restaurants guide.
For this trip with our kids, a few family friendly favorites were Blue Heaven, First Flight Brewery, Hank’s (with Garbo’s Grill parked on the patio) and Cuban Coffee Queen.
Must try: Key Lime Pie
No trip to Key West is complete without key lime pie, and while there’s a big debate about which key lime pie is the best, our favorite spot for it is Blue Heaven. It’s a Key West institution — funky, colorful, open-air, with free-roaming chickens wandering the grounds while you eat (which the kids thought was the best thing ever). We all enjoyed our meal at Blue Heaven, but the best part according to the kids (besides the chickens) was the mountain of meringue!
Mallory Square & the Sunset Celebration
No trip to Key West is complete without Mallory Square at sunset. Every evening, the square fills up with street performers, artists, and food vendors, all leading up to sunset over the water.
We saw Dr. Juice and Reidiculous perform, and while our kids were absolutely captivated, we were equally entertained! There’s something about live jugglers, tightrope walkers, and comedy acts that just works on every age.
Pro tip: Get there a little before sunset so you can wander through the vendors and grab a good spot before the shows really gets going.
Photo ops & historical stops
Ernest Hemingway Home
The Hemingway Home & Museum is one of those stops that’s interesting for grown-ups (Hemingway lived and wrote here) but ends up being just as fun for kids, for a totally different reason: the famous cats.
The property is home to dozens of six-toed cats named after famous writers and artists who are descendants of Hemingway’s original polydactyl cat Snowball. They get free range of the property so we spotted them lounging on furniture, napping in the garden, and wandering the grounds.
Our kids were fully entertained spending their entire visit cat-spotting, which made it worth the visit. You can do a guided tour if you want the history or you can just explore on your own and count cat toes.
Southernmost Point
This one’s a quick, classic Key West photo-op: the big red-and-black buoy marking the southernmost point in the continental United States. It’s touristy and there’s usually a little line to take your photo, but it only takes a few minutes and its a wonderful way to get a souvenir of your trip for free! Good one to knock out while you’re already walking or golf-carting around that end of the island.
Key West Lighthouse
If you’re looking for another quick stop to add to your list, the Key West Lighthouse is worth checking out. You can climb to the top for a great view over the island, and it’s paired with a small museum on the lighthouse’s history — a nice, bite-sized activity to work into a day of exploring.
Planning tip: The lighthouse would be the perfect addition to the Ernest Hemingway Home as it’s just down the street, and then you can also swing by the Southernmost Point and Butterfly Conservatory as they are close by, too.
Conservation & museum stops
Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory
The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory is a walk-through glasshouse conservatory filled with hundreds of free-flying butterflies, tropical birds, and flowers. It’s a nice, air-conditioned break in the middle of a hot Key West day.
With little ones, it’s an easy win — they get to see butterflies landing all around them, and there’s plenty to look at without much walking required.
Key West Aquarium
Another popular, air conditioned spot for our kids was the Key West Aquarium. It’s smaller and more low-key than a big-city aquarium, which works in your favor if you have toddlers or small kids because its an easy and manageable size to get through without a meltdown.
They have a touch tank with sea stars and hermit crabs, and we were able to get up close to sharks, stingrays, sea turtles and other local marine life. They have educational programming scheduled every hour, so we got to watch the stingrays eat lunch!
Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum
If your kids are into pirates or treasure, the Shipwreck Museum is a fun, interactive museum that tells the story of Key West’s wrecking industry. (The town’s economy was built on salvaging cargo from ships that wrecked on the surrounding coral reefs.)
Geared toward keeping kids engaged with live actors and artifacts, it’s a fun family stop and there’s even a lookout tower with a great bird’s eye view over Duval Street and Mallory Square.
Dry Tortugas National Park
About 70 miles west of Key West, Dry Tortugas National Park is the southernmost national park in the continental United States. (Fun fact: the southernmost National Park is the National Park of American Samoa).
Dry Tortugas is accessible only by ferry or seaplane, making it a full-day adventure. Keep this in mind when you’re planning a trip with small kids and balancing nap times, motion sickness, snacks and sun exposure.
Dry Tortugas is home to the historic Fort Jefferson along with incredible snorkeling in the crystal-clear water teeming with colorful coral reefs, tropical fish, queen conch, and more, making it a bucket-list spot for many families.
The Turtle Hospital
The Turtle Hospital in Marathon (about an hour North of Key West) is a veterinary and rehabilitation hospital for sea turtles, with the main goal of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing sick and injured sea turtles. It is well worth taking a day trip for a visit!
You can take a guided tour to see the turtles being treated and learn about conservation efforts and it was a big hit with our kids. We also had the privilege of getting to see a rehabilitated sea turtle released back into the wild at Sombrero Beach during our visit.
Key West Beaches
Key West isn’t exactly known for wide, powdery sand beaches the way some other parts of Florida are. But there are still a few great spots to cool off with kids in between all the sightseeing.
Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park is a favorite, since it combines a bit of history with beach time: you can explore the Civil War-era fort, then walk right out to one of the best beaches in Key West. Higgs Beach and Smathers Beach are both easy, low-key spots to let the kids dig in the sand and cool off in the water without much fuss.
Boat Trips & Kayaking
One of our favorite ways to experience the water in Key West is taking a boat trip. When we traveled to the Keys without kids, we did a mangrove kayaking experience where we saw sharks, manatees, dolphins and sea turtles. This type of tour would be perfect for slightly older kids. A snorkeling excursion also would be fun with older kids who are pretty good swimmers.
For us and our two little ones, we took a few boat trips during our week in the Keys (including a sunset cruise), which was a fun way and different way to explore the area and get out on the water.
about chrissie
I’m Chrissie — a full-time public defender, food lover, North Carolina explorer, toddler wrangler, and lifelong cheese enthusiast. I love the beach, craft beer, Mexican food, and trashy reality TV. Catch me chasing my kids, laughing too loudly, sipping margaritas on a nearby patio, and telling my husband “just one more quick picture.” Learn more ➤