How long will it take to drive this route?

[Norrie]

Folks - we'll be in Florida for a month so will have time to do a bit of looking around as well as a couple of the parks.

We fancy doing this journey .......

Orlando - Miami - Keys down to Key West.

then

Key West back up - Fort Lauderdale - cut across the Everglades to Naples.

Naples - Ft Myers - St Petersburg - Orlando.

This is NOT a definate set route, we're pretty much 'see where the road takes us' kinda people, but looking at the road map this is the 'blue print' of a road trip within a holiday.

Not even sure how many days we plan to use doing the trip.

So - any ideas of 'reasonable' timescales. Not wanting to do the big tourist thing in any of the drop off points - maybe just a whistle stop with refreshments.

I've got a 'ball park' estimate of 4 nights - realistic or way over the top or not enough time by a long shot?

Over to you.

Dinah

[CERICROWLEY]

To be honest with only 4 days, you will be spending most of the time driving.

A couple of years ago, we did this route sort of.

Got of the plane and headed across to the space coast and stayed overnight. then really early the next morning headed down to Key West, we did not go to Miami though, it took us all day to get there, arrived about 6.30pm although we spent 4 days in Key West, then headed back up across the everglades to Fort Myers and again stopped driving at about 7.00pm overnight before our next break on the gulf coast, spent 5 days here and then back to Orlando for the final 4 nights.

Hectic yes, but loved every minute of it.

[MarkJan]

We are "doing" half of this trip later this year but slightly differently. Driving to Fort Myers, overnight then 8am to Key West by ship:
www.seakeywestexpress.com/ships/newkw.htm

2 days Key West then return and back to Orlando. Having done the trip you are talking about except Key West, it is a lot of driving, apart from scenery passing you by, you won't see much.

[sundowner]

The ship option sounds good to cut down the driving.

We did the drive a few years ago and spent about 6-7 days doing it, stopping off overnight at different motels. We did not book the motels in advance just 'turned up' if we liked the look of it.

A couple of times we dropped into the local tourist agency for motels. They had a list of motels and a free phone so that you could book in advance. Had a great time.

[Norrie]

Thanks for the help. We're able to increase the time to do this trip, and we can 'nip & tuck' the trip to reduce time .... nothing set in stone at the moment.

I'll look into the ship option - looks good.

Thanks folks.

[flyrr100]

Have you done a Map Quest? They are amazingly accurate!