Hilton Key Largo Resort :

As a Miami kid my family used to drive along the treacherous, swampy 20-mile stretch between Florida City and Key Largo (now wider!), cavort, swim and fish at Harry Harris Park near Tavernier, and gobble down fresh fried yellowtail snapper, roasted corn and key lime pie in a ramshackle diner on U.S. 1 near the entrance to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. While north Key Largo has thankfully preserved most of its thick, luxuriant semi-tropical hammock, the southern end has become a stew of commercial and residential buildings that boast dive shops, seafood diners, strip malls, marinas and an array of hotels, motels, and the occasional boutique property. For most visitors, the series of green-and-white mile markers (Key Largo: MM 118 to MM 90.7) serves as no more than distance calculators heading southwest towards the ultimate destination – Key West.

HILTON KEY LARGO RESORT
Despite many travelers’ tendency to march lockstep 150 miles down the Florida Keys towards Islamorada, Marathon and KW, visitors with limited time can make a daytrip or a quick overnight and partake in the water/land pleasures of Key Largo. In fact, for folks staying in South Beach, the 60-mile voyage south takes less time than a similar trek north on busy I-95 to Palm Beach. I decided to explore the Keys’ “gatehouse” and stayed at the Hilton Key Largo Resort due in part to its sensitive eco footprint alongside Florida Bay. Nestled in a delightful 12.5-acre hardwood hammock of gumbo limbo, papaya, bougainvillea, poisonwood, mahogany, tamarind, and red, black and white mangroves, the 200-room property at MM 97 combines comfort and natural beauty. My beige-tone third floor beachside room overlooked treetops, the shallows of Florida Bay, and nearby Swash Keys that mark the southern border of Everglades National Park. As part of the room rate Hilton includes: blackout drapes, a Sony clock radio, hair dryer, in-room safe, ironing board rollaway, turndown service, LCD-TV with premium channels, minibar, internet (surcharge) and ice and soda machines next to the elevator.

HILTON EXTRAS
After an ample breakfast buffet at their main restaurant Treetops, I walked past the handsome public spaces festooned with black bamboo, the two heated pools, a jacuzzi and Splashes Pool Bar, and down the lovely beach trails where couples could relax in chaise lounges or hammocks surrounded by buttonwood, seagrape and warm, lapping salt water. With Florida Bay dominating the view, just past Waves Beach Bar, I found Caribbean Watersports that offers parasailing (scary but exhilarating at 600 feet!), Yamaha Waverunners, Hobbie Cats, yoga on paddleboards, the beach or dock, and Enviro-tours. Former Everglades National Park ranger Joyce Little takes you in a comfy inflatable for a two-hour tour of the surrounding bay waters and small mangrove islands. Next to the resort she showed us a marina wall of fossilized 125,000-year-old brain coral, an osprey nest with newly hatched chicks, a mangrove island and its amazing root system, a cove with roosting brown pelicans above and stingrays below, and a micro-meander of the Swash Keys finding tiny sea anemones, sponges, starfish, and the utterly fascinating nudibranch, the “sexy” member of the sea slug family.

SEAFOOD AND BIRDS
Since seafood can also be very edible, I chose Mrs. Mac’s Kitchen at MM 99.4 where sisters Angela and Paula Wittke prepare fresh local fish, stone crab and lobster in a 1947-style Keys shack with license plates attached to the diner’s front sign. Lunch was tasty with a slight twist including an excellent rich conch chowder, hog fish or lionfish (venomous fins) in homemade Tijuana sauce (tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro), and their seductive key lime freeze, a nice alternative to the famous pie namesake. Afterwards, I drove south past their brand new restaurant, Mrs. Mac’s II (MM 99) to the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center (MM 93.6) with a mission to rescue and rehabilitate native and migratory birds. With the help of a small staff, volunteers and contributions the charitable organization has built 19 aviaries with species like a peregrine falcon, red-shouldered hawk, great horned, barred, and Eastern screech owls, turkey vultures, plovers, ibis, terns, egrets, and double crested cormorants. Their wild bird hospital is managed by wildlife rehabilitator Amanda Barber with the help of two volunteer vets. Past the aviaries a walkway brings visitors to a saltwater pond, rookery, mangroves and the Florida Bay shallows. Early morning and late afternoon are usually better times to see wild birds drawn to the natural habitat. Entrance is free but donations are gratefully accepted.

YELLOWTAILING WITH CAPTAIN CHAN
Key Largo is ideal for fishing: the Atlantic ocean waters and shallow Florida Bay in the Everglades National Park leading southwest to the Gulf of Mexico. I often fish with Captain Chan, owner of the ....