Things to Do in Key West, United States: Walking Guide

Key West is a compact island city in the Florida Keys, known for its maritime history, historic houses, literary connections, and independent spirit. The best things to do in Key West range from exploring former naval buildings and shipwreck museums to visiting the Ernest Hemingway Home and standing beside the famous Southernmost Point Buoy. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Key West with 40 narrated places.

What to See in Key West

The city’s most important sights are concentrated around Old Town and the waterfront, with additional historic places stretching toward Truman Waterfront Park and Stock Island.

Harry S. Truman Little White House

The Harry S. Truman Little White House was the winter White House where President Harry S. Truman worked and met with advisers away from Washington. Truman used the house for 175 days across 11 visits between 1946 and 1952.

The building began in 1890 as a wooden Navy duplex known as Quarters A and B. It later became a single-family home for the base commandant. Today, it is a museum with guided tours through the rooms where Truman stayed and worked. Personal items, photographs, and period details give the house the character of a working home rather than a grand monument.

Old Post Office and Customshouse

Near the waterfront, the Old Post Office and Customshouse houses the Key West Museum of Art and History. The museum occupies two floors and combines local history, art, photography, and changing exhibitions.

Its displays explore maritime life, shipping, and important events from the Florida Keys through artifacts, documents, and visual material. The building itself is part of the experience: its grand design stands out among Key West’s smaller wooden homes. The Custom House and Old Post Office was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places on September 20, 1973.

Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum

The Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum tells the story of shipwrecks, treasure, and maritime archaeology. Its collection includes artifacts recovered from Spanish ships lost at sea, including the 1622 fleet and the wrecks of Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita.

Coins, jewelry, gold, silver, emeralds, cannons, instruments, and ship parts reveal what these vessels carried and how important they were to Spanish trade. The museum also includes a conservation and archaeology laboratory, connecting the collection with ongoing research and preservation.

USCGC Ingham Maritime Museum

At Truman Waterfront Park, the USCGC Ingham Maritime Museum occupies a real Coast Guard cutter rather than a recreated exhibit. The 1936 Treasury-class cutter is one of only two surviving vessels of its class and is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Visitors can move through the bridge, crew quarters, and operational areas. Narrow passageways, steep ladders, low ceilings, original equipment, and confined working spaces convey the conditions faced by the crew. Exhibits cover the ship’s Coast Guard missions, including service during World War II, the Cold War, and later drug interdiction operations.

The Ingham became the most decorated vessel in the Coast Guard fleet and the only cutter to receive two Presidential Unit Citations, awarded during the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969.

Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is one of Key West’s best-known historic attractions. Hemingway lived in the house with his wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, from 1931 to 1939.

Built in 1851 in the French Colonial style by Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvager, the house was restored and expanded by Hemingway and Pauline. Its dark wood furniture, connected rooms, and original or period furnishings create a personal sense of the couple’s life there.

The gardens are also central to the visit. The property is famous for its polydactyl, or six-toed, cats, descendants of Hemingway’s original cats. Tropical plants, paths, porches, and a pool complete the grounds.

Key West Lighthouse and Keeper’s Quarters Museum

A short distance from Duval Street, the Key West Lighthouse and Keeper’s Quarters Museum explains how ships were guided through the reefs and narrow waters around the Florida Keys before modern navigation systems.

The lighthouse was built in 1848. Its main feature is a climb of 88 steps to the upper level, where views extend across Old Town’s rooftops, palm trees, porches, and distant water. The former Keeper’s Quarters next door contains photographs, maps, documents, and objects related to the work and routines behind the light.

Audubon House and Tropical Gardens

Audubon House and Tropical Gardens combines a nineteenth-century home with shaded garden paths in Old Town. Captain John Huling Geiger, a wealthy master wrecker, built the house between 1846 and 1849, and his family lived there for more than a century.

Inside, antique furnishings reflect the lifestyle of a successful nineteenth-century Key West household. Outside, brick paths wind through orchids, bromeliads, palms, and other tropical plants. The grounds include an herb garden and a nursery arranged in an 1840 style. The property is also connected with John James Audubon, who sketched local plants there, including the Geiger tree.

Fort East Martello Museum and Gardens

Fort East Martello Museum and Gardens occupies a Civil War-era fort built in 1862. The building later became the first historical museum in the Florida Keys and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on June 19, 1972.

The curved walls, arched brick ceilings, lookout tower, and circular iron staircase make the fort itself a major part of the visit. The collection includes local history, art, and unusual stories, including Robert the Doll, a haunted doll once owned by artist Robert Eugene Otto.

Fort Zachary Taylor

Fort Zachary Taylor is a coastal fortification within Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park. Its position near Key West made it part of the military landscape of Florida during the second half of the nineteenth century.

One notable detail in its history is that, despite its importance as a military installation, Fort Zachary Taylor was never directly involved in combat.

The Southernmost Point Buoy

At the corner of South Street and Whitehead Street, the Southernmost Point Buoy is one of Key West’s most recognizable photo stops. The painted concrete marker states that Cuba is roughly 90 miles, or 140 kilometers, to the south.

The city placed the buoy on September 10, 1983, replacing a smaller sign. It rises 18 feet, or 5.5 meters, above sea level and has survived several hurricanes. Its bright design has become one of the most familiar symbols of Key West.

More maritime and cultural landmarks

The U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, Key West Station, also known as Building Number One, is the oldest brick building on Key West. Built between 1856 and 1861 as a naval supplies depot, it later served as a Naval Administration Building and as the headquarters of the 7th Lighthouse District.

The Key West Shipwreck Museum presents four hundred years of shipwreck salvage through actors, films, artifacts, and hands-on displays. Its recreation of a nineteenth-century wrecker’s warehouse helps explain how recovered cargo was brought ashore and sold.

At Art On Duval Key West, a Procaccini Gallery, marine life is the central theme. The gallery displays work by Wyland, including dolphins, life-sized whales, ocean scenes, and marine-life bronzes. A fountain with three dolphin sculptures introduces the collection.

The Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden on Stock Island offers a quieter setting of trees, shrubs, palms, and champion tree specimens. The Conch Republic, meanwhile, remains one of the city’s most distinctive traditions: Key West declared its secession from the United States on April 23, 1982, in response to a U.S. Border Patrol roadblock and checkpoint.

Explore Key West with Neywo

If you are looking for a Key West self-guided walking tour or a free walking tour in Key West, Neywo lets you explore independently. The app has two walking tours and one bike route in the city, covering 3.5 to 3.85 km and lasting between 18 and 111 minutes, with 24 narrated stops in total.

The walks include a 1.99 km, 111-minute route focused on wreckers, treasure, and the Truman retreat, with 12 stops. A second walk covers 3.85 km in 103 minutes and follows Hemingway-related places from Duval Street to the Southernmost Point, with 9 stops. The 3.5 km bike route takes around 18 minutes and includes 3 stops connected with forts and beaches.

Neywo works as you move: the app tells the story of each place when you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Download Neywo to explore Key West with a free audio guide and discover the city’s museums, historic buildings, maritime landmarks, and island stories on your own.

Key West is part of Florida in the United States.