It really shouldn’t be this good. I’m cruising along Highway 1 in my Chrysler convertible, the Florida sun is putting on its pink make-up for a sunset performance, the radio is chugging out classic rock, and a pelican is coasting in from the ocean. It seems to be checking out any resemblance I might bear to a red snapper. Well, after a day on the road, my nose is already turning the right colour.

The world feels perfect, in a Route 66 kind of way. And yet it shouldn’t.

Because the section of highway I’m driving along ought to be an ecological disaster. Seven Mile Bridge is a bare, concrete causeway scarring the tropical-blue ocean, a motorway bringing hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year — trucks included — rumbling and snorting along a 113-mile chain of potentially pristine atolls.

So why is it this beautiful? Why is it so different from driving across any other motorway bridge I’ve ever been on? The only answer I can think of is that I’m in the Florida Keys, and the usual rules just don’t apply here.

My first stop on the route west is a B&B called The Barnacle, on Big Pine Key, which also breaks all the rules. It’s an ochre house that looks a bit like a Native American spaceship. When I arrive in late afternoon, there’s a note from the landlady telling me to make myself at home — she’s gone to work on her boat. The front door is wide open. Anyone could wander off with at least one TV set without so much as tickling a lock. And this is Florida, home of Miami Vice and a million drug smugglers? But as one Keys resident tells me later, there is virtually no crime on the islands, because there’s nowhere to go except back along the highway. A man robbed a bank in Key West a few years back — using a pitchfork — and then just took the cash to the nearest bar and drank as much as he could before the cops arrived.

I dump my bag in my room, which, like the whole house, is gloriously quirky. There’s an armour-helmet ice bucket, religious stained-glass windows, framed etchings of mushrooms. It’s been designed by a nutcase who lived next to a flea market. I feel right at home.

I go to sit on the beach as the sun dips into the uncharacteristically calm Atlantic. And suddenly I am surrounded by Bambis. These are the supposedly rare and ultra-shy Key deer, and yet I’m having to explain politely to four of them that my toes aren’t bar snacks.

Next morning, at a friendly communal breakfast, I describe my encounter to a man from Michigan whose conversation revolves around Animals He Has Shot. He has half a moose sticking out of his living-room wall, he tells me, and a bear rug in front of the TV. From what I can gather, those Bambis are lucky they don’t live on the mainland. Their ears would be home-made iPod cases by now.

Well, on Big Pine their ears are safe. They’re protected, and all traffic — even up on the highway — has to slow to 35mph at night to avoid running them over.

My next appointment with local wildlife is on the other side of Big Pine Key, at Blue Hole. It’s a small lake in the pine forest with a frankly worrying car park. One sign prohibits “firearms, unless cased and left in car”. Another announces “caution, alligators may be on the trail”.

But that isn’t worrying enough for Carleen, the volunteer warden on duty at the lake. As we gaze down into the shallows at two sleepy alligators, a 6ft male and a 9ft female, she says that both are potential man-eaters. They’ve been fed by visitors and now view humans as a source of food — and a foodstuff. Get too close and they’ll lunge, she says. It seems they have become thoroughly modern Americans and now snack between meals. On people.

The Keys also have offshore nature reserves, along the reef a few miles out into the Atlantic. It’s too windy for good visibility today, but I finally find a boat that is going out on a snorkelling trip. The water is choppy out on the reef, and snorkelling feels a bit like underwater bungee jumping. In between taking mouthfuls of Atlantic, I swim with a turtle and hover above a small brown nurse shark, and find it hard to believe that all this in-the-raw nature is so perfectly preserved and yet so close to intense human activity.

I mention this over dinner with my Floridian friends Larry and Andy. The authorities are very conscientious about wildlife management, the guys tell me. To catch unauthorised fishermen, the local police have trained a lobster sniffer dog. Even the French haven’t thought of that one yet.

Larry and Andy tell me about other local oddities. A judge who dishes out punishments such as a choice between 60 days in jail or five years’ exile from the Keys. The annual underwater music festival, originally conceived by a designer of waterproof speakers (I kid you not). Divers go down and play air guitar (or water guitar, I suppose) to music piped across the reef, the stars of the July festival being a costumed troupe called the Snorkelling Elvises.

When the conversation turns to hurricanes, things get no less surreal. The locals discuss them as if they were unwelcome relatives. “Dennis killed the lime tree in my yard,” Larry tells me, “and Wilma flooded the kitchen.”

Surrealism aside, Wilma hit the islands hard, sending a 5ft tidal surge across the Keys, which was potentially catastrophic, considering that the highest point in the whole archipelago is a dizzying 16ft peak. The next day, I explore a side road in Marathon, the central town in the chain, and find eerily skewed houseboats, leaning down towards the quay as if the residents had packed all their belongings into one corner of the living room.

But in Key West, at the far end of the highway, you’d never know that there had been so much as a drizzle. The old town possesses the biggest collection of historic wooden houses in the USA, and a walk along any street is a trip into an estate agent’s wildest fantasies. Sublime pastel-painted cottages, their gardens dripping with tropical vegetation, their balconies crying out for a hammock, sell for millions and yet retain a rootsy, unsnobbish look.

Again, this perfectly preserved zone coexists with intense tourist activity — the peaceful historic area starts only yards away from one of America’s liveliest party zones, Duval Street.

After the compulsory gathering on the harbourside to watch the sunset and a host of jugglers, fire-breathers and ponytailed banjo players, tourists descend on the town’s main street. Practically every building along Duval is a semi-alfresco pub or restaurant, offering drag-queen cabaret, macho sports-bar boozing, Cuban cocktails and a whole lot more. I see a lap-dancing club, with one of the half-dressed dancers on the porch calmly doing her nails before the show. As if people are going to be watching her hands.

I head one block away from the main drag to the Green Parrot, a crowded bar with a live band leaping around so wildly that the singer almost decapitates himself on the overhead fan. Like all the other bars, its doors and windows are wide open, and what could be a sweaty dive stays cool, in all senses of the word. I’m at a miniature Woodstock, without the mud.

In the daytime, there is more refined culture to be had. Ernest Hemingway’s old mansion has displays of his letters, his book collection, even the cheques he drew on the local bank. You can visit the study he built overlooking the first seawater swimming pool in the Keys.

Here, the old man showed especially good judgment, because my only real whinge about the Keys would be the swimming. These are mangrove-fringed islands, so unless you get a boat out to the reef, the water is often cloudy, and beaches are sometimes more like mudbanks.

In a way, the beach issue sums up the whole Keys experience. If you’re looking for the unspoilt peace of a tropical-island holiday, they aren’t for you. The highway’s never far away — Americans don’t go anywhere they can’t get to in a car — and if you don’t get off it, you might come away with the impression that you’ve been to the Drive-Thru Maldives.

But if, like me, you love to mix your seafooding, snorkelling and alligator-viewing with opportunities to sit back in the car, tune into 103.1 FM (“the right rock radio”), stick your left elbow out the window and live your own road movie, then you’ll never want to leave.

There’s no need to go to Route 66 to get your kicks. Highway 1 has all the fun.


Stephen Clarke is the author of A Year in the Merde and Merde Actually (both published by Black Swan at £6.99)

Travel brief

Getting there: fly to Miami. The only direct flights from the UK and Ireland are with British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com), American Airlines (0845 778 9789, www.americanairlines.co.uk), and Virgin Atlantic (0870 380 2007, www.virgin-atlantic.com) from Heathrow; from about £400. Indirect flights from regional airports are also about £400, through Expedia (0870 050 0808, www.expedia.co.uk) or Ebookers (0800 970 3115, www.ebookers.com).

Getting around: Hertz (0870 844 8844, www.hertz.co.uk) has a week’s inclusive car hire from £126. Or try Thrifty (01494 751600, www.thrifty.co.uk).

Where to stay: it’s a good idea to spend a night or two in Miami before hitting the road. Try the super-cool Hotel Nash (00 1-305 674 7800, www.hotelnash.com), in the heart of the art-deco district; poolside rooms from £90.

For a family, the Marriott Resort on Key Largo (305 453 0000, www.marriottkeylargo.com) is the perfect base. It’s right opposite John Pennekamp State Park (see activities, below), and has a pool, watersports’ excursion centre and a kids’ activities programme. Rooms with two double beds, most with balcony, from £115.

The Barnacle (305 872 3298, www.thebarnacle.net) is a quirky, peaceful B&B on the beach at Big Pine Key. Doubles from £72, B&B.

Island City House (305 294 5702, www.islandcityhouse.com) is a stylish hotel on Key West, fashioned out of two lovely old houses in lush gardens. Suites with kitchen from £72.

Activities: you’ll find snorkelling trips, kayaking, nature walks and camp sites at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park (305 451 6300, www.pennekamppark.com), and Bahia Honda State Park (305 872 3210, www.bahiahondapark.com). If the weather’s not good, Spirit Snorkeling at Marathon (305 289 0614) goes to a more sheltered reef.

When to go: the next couple of months are best — hurricane season starts in June.

Further information: www.fla-keys.co.uk.