Home Cruise ports Key West

Key West Cruise Port: What Can You Walk To?

Key West is four miles by two, flat, and shaded by tropical trees — and every cruise berth puts you inside the historic district on foot.

Can you walk it?: Yes — walkable from the ship — yes — the whole island is walkable
Where ships dock: Mallory Square, the Outer Mole or Pier B, all in Old Town.
Pier to town: You dock in Old Town.
Typical time ashore: Typically 8am–5pm.

This is a walking port with no transport question at all. Duval Street runs a mile from the Gulf to the Atlantic; the whole of Old Town is Conch houses, shotgun cottages and Bahamian carpentry from the wrecking and cigar-making boom. The famous buoy at the southernmost point is a 25-minute walk, and the queue for a photograph is the only hard part.

Build a Key West port-day route

Tell it how many hours you have ashore and it plans a route that fits — Key West is already filled in.

What to see on foot in Key West

Duval Street

One mile, Gulf of Mexico to Atlantic. The bars at the north end are famous; the south end is quieter and much prettier.

Hemingway Home

He wrote much of his best work here in the 1930s. About sixty cats live on the grounds, many polydactyl, descended from a ship's cat.

Southernmost Point Buoy

90 miles to Cuba, and the sign is not quite at the actual southernmost point, which sits on naval land.

The Custom House and Mallory Square

Where wreckers auctioned salvage from ships lost on the reef — a trade that briefly made Key West the richest city per head in America.

The Key West Cemetery

Above-ground vaults in the middle of town, with epitaphs including "I told you I was sick".

Planning the day

Walk Duval south to the buoy, cut across to the Hemingway house and the lighthouse, come back through the cemetery and the quieter lanes, and finish at Mallory Square. That is 5 km, all flat, and covers the island properly.

What to watch out for

Ships usually leave before the famous sunset celebration at Mallory Square, which is the one thing overnight visitors get and you do not. Summer heat and humidity are severe.

All-aboard is not the departure time. It is usually 30 to 60 minutes earlier, and a ship waits only for its own excursions. Plan any route to be back at the pier with an hour in hand.

Questions about the Key West port day

Do you need transport in Key West from the cruise ship?

No. Every berth is in Old Town, the island is flat, and the whole historic district is inside a 5 km walking loop. It is among the best walking ports anywhere.

How far is the Southernmost Point from the cruise pier?

About 1.6 km, roughly 25 minutes on foot down Duval Street. Go early — the photograph queue can be half an hour by mid-morning.

What is a self-guided walking tour?

A route you walk on your own schedule, with the commentary delivered to your phone instead of by a guide. There is no meeting point and no group — you start when you want, stop as long as you like at anything that interests you, and skip anything that does not.

How long are the tours?

You choose: 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, or three and more. The route is planned to fit the time, including how long you say you want to spend at each stop.

Does it work offline?

You need a connection to plan the tour and to stream the narration for each stop. Once a stop's audio has played it is cached by your browser, but plan for having data where you are walking.

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Plan your Key West route

A 24-hour pass is $6.95 and covers unlimited tours. Joining someone else’s is free.