Sunset is one of the best times of day in Key West, and the Sunset Celebration is almost always on every visitor’s list of things they plan to do while on vacation in the Southernmost City.   While planning a trip to Key West, also make sure to consider trip cancellation insurance.   Our sunsets are gorgeous, but our weather is unpredictable.  With trip cancellation insurance, you can buy a policy that covers trip cancellation, trip delay, trip interruption, missed connections, and more.  There’s even an optional cancel for any reason add-on for some policies if you go through Seven Corners, Inc.

Basic policies will cover nonrefundable portions of your trip if it gets canceled, or if you incur additional expenses due to missed connections, delayed portions of your trip, and even lost baggage and more.  Premium policies will let you cancel your tip and get your money back with no questions asked.  Say you want to attend a surprise birthday party that you didn’t know about when you bought your travel tour tickets.  If you bought the right level of trip cancellation insurance, you’ll be covered.

Travel insurance also covers you if your airline goes bankrupt before you get to complete your trip.  Let’s say you book your trip a few months in advance, well the airline you plan to use may go bankrupt before you even get to fly!  Other covered areas are emergency medical expenses, and even baggage delay.  If your baggage arrives but not until two days after you’ve landed at your destination, you’ll have to buy a few things just to get through those first few days without your baggage.  Trip insurance can cover this expense for up to $400.  Now, everyone knows that you only need a swimsuit and flip flops in Key West, but even that costs money!

We live in a rental that costs way too much, but can’t seem to leave it because it’s so perfect for us.  As you can see, there’s a tree or two, birds, and a little teeny yard and deck.  That’s a heck of a lot for Key West.  We’d love to buy it but it’s too much money.  Having owned condos in the past, I just can’t get past the fact that there’s a premium for anything you buy on the island of Key West, since it is Key West after all.

My dream would be to own a few condos: one in South Beach, one in New York City, and one in Rome, Italy.  There are much better deals in South Beach than in Key West, what with all the high rises that are continually going up.  Key West doesn’t have high rise apartment and condo buildings.  New York City condos offer a lot more to choose from as well.  Not only are there high rises, there are also pre-War buildings with gorgeous condos full of great architectural details.

Scenes of Key West:

• Fishing for Mahi Mahi
• Mallory Square Sunset Celebration
• Shark Fishing
• Sunset Cruise
• Snorkeling
• Smathers Beach
• Jet Skiing
• Kiteboarding

Boats pull up providing soundtrack and vibrating pods of bikini girls, moving and dancing as one organism.� Almost everyone is on the sand, not in the water but some venture in, shoulders raised instinctively against the cold shock of in-shore frigid waters.  These kids come from all over the country, many from colleges and universities in Florida but others from colder parts, like the upper midwest.

We get the full range of schools here, from large state universities to small private colleges, all come to enjoy the sun and water in Key West.  It’s probably the highest concentration of learned minds you’ll find all year here in the Southernmost City.  Key West isn’t known for its academic culture…we do have one community college here, and there’s something on the Navy base offering college courses, but otherwise it’s all about fun and sun here.

If you want to get ahead and work on a new degree, you have to search out and choose one of the accredited online schools that suits your needs.  There are more and more of them these days, catering to the academic needs of people who have chosen island living or who are otherwise isolated from academic institutions. 

Key West chickens forage in the dirt and eat bugs, thereby preventing them from entering your home.� They are not “unclean” – have you ever stepped in chicken poop in Key West?� How about dog poop?� I’ve stepped in the latter but never even seen a hint of the former.� Maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for…?� What does it look like.

The chickens and roosters in Key West are part of the island’s colorful history.� These are not farm chickens let loose.� They are descendants of actual fighting roosters!� Cock fighting used to be a big deal here in Key West, before laws were passed against the sport.� Sometime perhaps in the 1970s or 1980s, the fighters had to be released and now they are a pest-eating, picture-worthy part of the streets in Key West.

There are nature trail signs so you can read up on mangrove habitat while you’re there.  As you get closer to the ocean, you’ll see a bench and platform for resting and viewing the scenery.  Then the board trail ends up at the dune line of the beach, which like all Key West beaches, is narrow.  It’s a nice diversion and a cool place to take pictures.  Key West used to be covered in this type of vegetation and it’s nice someone has preserved a small patch of what it used to be like.

Key West Wildlife

This is a tiny island, and resources are strained.  It’s crowded, especially during winter.  There aren’t a lot of wild animals on land, so when I see some, it’s exicting.  For anyone who’s not from Florida, it’s pretty strange to walk outside and find yourself staring into the beady eyes of a giant neon green lizard.  Where I’m from, the biggest lizards or salamandars are maybe a foot long and dark colored, and they scurry away when you get near.

So it’s not indigenous.  Iit’s still wildlife!

This iguana is eating lettuce, and he’s accompanied by a larger one, who lurks in the background of these photos.  These shots were captured with a Canon S3 IS, which has a great 12x optical zoom feature.

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Dolphins in front of Key West

They move fast so it’s hard to get a good picture.  Every time we drove up to them they’d dive and disappear only to emerge later way far away.  Here’s the closet we could get.

Dolphins Playing Just South of Key West