Explore Key West

The Key West Cemetery, laid out in 1847 after a hurricane washed out the earlier burial ground, covers 19 acres in the middle of Old Town. Because of the high water table many graves are above-ground vaults; there is a memorial to the sailors of USS Maine, and some headstones carry inscriptions in local humour.

Duval Street crosses Key West's Old Town for about 2 kilometres, from the Gulf of Mexico near Mallory Square to the Atlantic Ocean. Named after William Pope Duval, Florida's first territorial governor, it is lined with bars, restaurants, shops, galleries and 19th-century wooden houses, many in Bahamian and Victorian styles.

The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory at the south end of Duval Street opened in 2003. A glass-domed tropical habitat holds 50 to 60 species of butterflies flying freely among flowering plants, waterfalls and small birds such as finches and a pair of flamingos, with a learning centre on butterfly biology.

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum at 907 Whitehead Street in Key West is a stone house of 1851 where the writer lived with Pauline Pfeiffer from 1931 to 1939. Here he wrote works including To Have and Have Not. Rooms keep his furniture and writing studio, and dozens of cats, many of them six-toed, live in the garden.

The Key West Lighthouse on Whitehead Street replaced a tower destroyed by the 1846 hurricane and first shone in 1848; it was raised by 20 feet in 1894 and decommissioned in 1969. The Key West Art and Historical Society runs it as a museum: visitors climb 88 steps to the top and see the keepers' quarters with their belongings.

The Southernmost Point Buoy is a painted concrete marker at the corner of South and Whitehead Streets in Key West, set up by the city in 1983. About 3.7 metres tall, it carries the words '90 miles to Cuba' and marks a point long called the southernmost in the continental United States, though a beach nearby lies farther south.

The Audubon House on Whitehead Street was built in the 1840s for harbour pilot and wrecker John Geiger, and is named after John James Audubon, who visited Key West in 1832 to draw local birds. The restored house shows 19th-century furniture and a collection of Audubon's first-edition bird prints, set in a tropical garden.

The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum at 200 Greene Street in Key West is a non-profit museum of shipwreck archaeology. It shows objects recovered from 17th-century wrecks such as the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita, and from the slave ship Henrietta Marie, and offers tours of its conservation lab.

The Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum on Mallory Square tells the story of the wreckers who salvaged ships on the Florida Keys reef. Set in a re-created 19th-century wrecker's warehouse, it combines actors, films and objects from the Isaac Allerton, which sank in 1856, and visitors can climb a 65-foot lookout tower.

The Key West Aquarium stands at 1 Whitehead Street on Mallory Square. Built by the Works Progress Administration between 1932 and 1934, it opened in 1935 as an open-air aquarium. It shows fish, sharks, rays and sea turtles of the Florida Keys, with a touch tank and guided feeding presentations through the day.

Mallory Square is a waterfront plaza in Key West's Old Town, beside the cruise ship pier at the northern end of Duval Street. Every evening, starting about two hours before sunset, the Sunset Celebration fills it with street performers, craft stalls and food carts while people watch the sun go down over the Gulf of Mexico.

The Harry S. Truman Little White House in Key West's Truman Annex was built in 1890 as officers' quarters at the naval station. President Truman spent 175 days here over 11 working winter visits between 1946 and 1952. The house is shown on guided tours with its furnishings, including Truman's desk.

Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park lies at the south-western tip of Key West. Its brick fort, begun in 1845 and named after President Zachary Taylor, stayed in Union hands during the Civil War and is a National Historic Landmark. Guides lead fort tours, and the park's beach is used for swimming, snorkelling and picnics.