The place file / Florida Keys
Key West,
Florida
It seceded from the United States in 1982, declared war and surrendered a minute later.
Then it asked for a billion dollars in foreign aid.
Salty Seniors place guide
Could I live here?The draw
It has never had a frost
The catch
The median house is over a million
The question
One road out, in hurricane season
The Conch Republic, briefly
On April 23, 1982, Key West left the United States. The Border Patrol had put a roadblock on the only highway out of the Keys and was searching every car. The traffic backed up and the tourists stopped coming. The mayor went to court, lost, and seceded instead.
He declared war by breaking a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man in a naval uniform. A minute later he surrendered and applied for a billion dollars in foreign aid. The money never came. The roadblock went away.
About 26,000 people live here. Roughly 60 cats live at Ernest Hemingway’s house, about half of them with six toes. Hunter S. Thompson spent part of the late 1970s at Jimmy Buffett’s place, which tells you what kind of town it was.
The big painted buoy marking the southernmost point of the continental United States is not a buoy, and it is not at the southernmost point. That is on the Navy base next door. People queue for the photograph anyway.
The chickens are protected by city ordinance, and carry themselves accordingly.
What stays open year-round?
Everything, and late. Winter is the busy season, when the rest of the continent comes down to thaw. The coldest it has ever been here is 5°C, in 1886 and again in 1981. Summer is the slow season, and some places close for a few weeks in September, when it is hottest, wettest and most likely to be interrupted.
What will summer ask of you?
Tolerance for heat and a plan for leaving. Hurricane season runs from June through November. In 2017 Irma came ashore 48 km up the road as a Category 4, and everyone in the Keys had been ordered out days before. There is one highway. When the order comes you go early, and you take the cat.
How close is the care you need?
Lower Keys Medical Center is on Stock Island, the next island over. It handles the ordinary. None of the hospitals in the Keys has a trauma unit, so the badly hurt are flown to the mainland by county helicopter. For anything complicated but not urgent, Miami is about 260 km away by road.
Could you live without a car?
Yes, and here it is the sensible choice. The island is about 6 km long and flat. Its highest point is 5.5 metres above the sea. People get around by bicycle, and parking is scarce. A car mostly gives you something to worry about during storms.
What does a house cost?
The median sale was about US$1.15 million in 2026, and that buys a small wooden house on a small lot. Get quotes for wind and flood insurance before you fall for anything. On a flat island in the hurricane belt they are a large part of the bill, and so is everything else that has to come down the highway.
Coming from Canada?
It is as far south as you can drive, and closer to Havana than to Miami. Canadians can generally stay up to six months in any twelve as visitors. If you cross by land and stay 30 days or more, you now have to register with the U.S. government, unless you were given an I-94 at the border.
