Two reasons to visit here. One, I have heard much about it over the years, all good. The pace of life here is supposed to be much more laid back than much of the rest of the U.S. And two, when I was in early grade school, the grandchildren of our next door neighbor would visit and they were from Key West. At the time, it seemed like such a faraway place.

So let me tell you abou the city in general and the specific places I visited:

• Drive Here: Grueling for Type A personality. 40 mph from mainland to the city. Two lanes only, never a place to pass. Get behind a slow vehicle/truck -- enjoy the slow ride
• City Overall: Narrow, narrow streets, streets dominated by, in this order: bikers, walkers, motorcycles, tour trollies, vehicles. Good luck street parking as they are all taken. You can sometimes find a pay-to-park spot that varies from $3 to $5 per hour. Walkers and bikers know they "own" the streets and will walk in front of you regardless of the color of the traffic light or where in the block they are and you-in-vehicle are
• Lighthouse Museum: cool looking but rather short lighthouse. I have seen inside several lighthouses over the years so was uninterested in touring this one
• Hemmingway House: this is a popular tourist place and therefore they can charge for it in admission prices. As expected, cats everywhere including sitting on the place where you get your ticket. Nice house, built for breezes but I doubt he used that PC sitting in the kitchen.
• Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center: this is right next door to the Fort Zachary Taylor. It is free and is small but interesting. Good way to learn about the keys from the standpoints of geology, weather, biology and oceanography
• Ft. Zachary Taylor: the fort is like most typical forts built prior to the Civil War. However, this one has some great views of the Gulf, especially when climb up the stairs. Nearby, and included in the admission prices (an all-day ticket) is a small park right on the shore. Well worth the visit.
• Little White House: the place where this sits in the northwest corner of town is quite impressive. Very peaceful and quaint and looking very much tropical. Understandable why President Truman liked this place. Self-guided touring is free. I just took a quick look outside as I was parked in an illegal spot since legal parking was who-knows-where.
• Bouy at Southernmost Point: a large bouy sits at a point that is considered as the southernmost point of the United States and closest to Cuba. People like to stand next to it and have their photo taken.
• Sarabeth Restaurant: this place was touted on the Internet as a vegetarian restaurant. However, a look a the menu and its numerous dishes of meat, fish and eggs says otherwise. I found only one thing on the menu that could be considered as vegetarian: fried mozarella sandwich with avocado and tomato. It was good though, served on sourdough bread.
• Sunset: the city calls itself the place where the sunset is. They have a special place to watch sunsets, at the northwest corner of town. A boardwalk was built just for it. A live band plays. People are buying all types of drinks. And they turn out by the thousands. It is a oarty!
• Downtown: streets are narrow, traffic is crazy, people walking and biking everywhere, parking is a nightmare, shops and shoppers galore. And chickens are running around free.
• Location, Location, Location: Key West hotels, especially those near the water, can charge pretty much whatever they want, and they do. For a price over what I have paid to stay in tower hotels in downtown Chicago, I paid for a Key West room in an equivalent of a two-star two-story motel in many other places. Okay, so the floors were wooden instead of carpet and there were two sink stations. Still, the place not that fancy. And, the water cannot be seen from here (we could if it were six stories or higher but nothing in town is that tall), the water is four blocks away.
• Lifestyle: for those who like seafood or walking/biking or shopping in numerous quaint shops or feeling the ocean sun or sitting by the pool or looking at palm trees, then Key West is the place for you. Average temperature max highs and max lows (per what I saw at the Eco-Discovery Center) is between 60 and 90 all year. However, for personality Type A folks who want to move around quickly in our cars and find a free parking space, FORGET IT. Cannot be had here in any fashion whatsoever. Car drivers rank very, very low (in fact, dead last) on the totem pole of who this town is designed for.