About a Week
6 days · ~520 miles · from St. Augustine
Flagler's whole coast, top to bottom: the oldest city, the beach where speed was born, rockets and shipwreck gold, a Gold Coast transfer day, then forty-two bridges to Mile 0.
This trip chains: A1A: Flagler's Coast · The Space & Treasure Coast · The Overseas Highway
Starting in St. Augustine, this 6-day itinerary connects A1A: Flagler's Coast and The Space & Treasure Coast and The Overseas Highway. It suits travellers interested in parks, coast, mountains & water; barbecue, boudin, oysters & tamales; art towns, writers & folkways. The day-by-day bases let you split roughly 520 miles into a sequence of visits rather than trying to cover every linked route end to end. Use the daily highlights to decide which places deserve your longest stops.
Budget an average of about 87 miles per day across the whole trip, or roughly 1.9–2.9 hours behind the wheel at an assumed 30–45 mph back-roads pace. This is a planning estimate, not a measured time for each leg: transfer days can be longer and rest days shorter. Add meal stops, tours, ferries, traffic and hikes separately; use each day's navigation link for current driving estimates.
Use these day-end areas to plan lodging; the map pins are orientation points, not hotel recommendations. The final day can be your departure day.
Choose your dates around the experiences below rather than assuming one season fits the entire trip. These notes come from the linked route guides; check current forecasts and official schedules.
A day without the car. The Castillo at opening, before the coquina walls heat up; the Lightner Museum in Flagler's Alcazar, with the world's largest indoor pool now serving lunch; and north of town, Fort Mose, the first free Black settlement in what became the United States, 1738, which the brochures took two centuries to mention. Overnight St. Augustine.
A 1742 coquina watchtower guarding St. Augustine's back door, reached by a free NPS ferry. 'Matanzas' means slaughters; the Spanish executed shipwrecked French Huguenots here in 1565.
Navigate day 1 in Google Maps ↗
A1A south: Marineland, Washington Oaks' coquina shore, Flagler Beach's pier, and Ormond and Daytona, where the sand was hard enough to race on and somebody did. Ponce Inlet's lighthouse, the tallest in Florida, then the Canaveral National Seashore's empty beaches with the launch pads on the horizon. Overnight Titusville.
The world's first oceanarium (1938), built as an underwater movie studio. It was Florida's biggest attraction before Disney; the dolphin habitat still runs in the deco shell.
24 miles of undeveloped Atlantic beach saved by the Space Center next door. Apollo Beach at the north end; rocket views with pelicans instead of crowds.
A 1742 coquina watchtower guarding St. Augustine's back door, reached by a free NPS ferry. 'Matanzas' means slaughters; the Spanish executed shipwrecked French Huguenots here in 1565.
A 30-mile ride on Old Dixie Highway under an oak canopy the developers never got. The best surviving stretch of the original 1910s tourist road in Florida.
Olds and Winton raced the hard sand here in 1903; land-speed records fell on this beach for three decades before Bonneville took over. A replica Ormond Garage tells it.
Navigate day 2 in Google Maps ↗ · via Fort Matanzas, Marineland, The Ormond Loop, Birthplace of Speed Park, Drive the Beach, Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, Canaveral National Seashore
Kennedy Space Center until early afternoon (the Saturn V hall does not get smaller), then A1A down the barrier islands: Sebastian Inlet, the McLarty Treasure Museum on the 1715 fleet's wreck site, the stretch where beachcombers still find a coin after storms. Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, 1860, red by late light. Overnight Jupiter.
Built on the actual survivors' camp of the 1715 fleet disaster. Eleven ships, a hurricane, and Spanish silver that beachcombers with metal detectors still find.
Lit in 1860, designed by a pre-war George Meade, who would be busy at Gettysburg three years later. Climb it for the whole Treasure Coast in one look.
The frogmen trained on this beach for D-Day. The only museum dedicated to the SEALs, on the sand where their story started.
Backus taught a generation of Black painters who, shut out of galleries, sold fast, glowing Florida landscapes door to door. The Highwaymen made 200,000 paintings; this is their shrine.
The last of ten 1876 houses of refuge built to shelter shipwrecked sailors on this empty coast. Oldest structure in Martin County, sitting on bare rock over the surf.
Navigate day 3 in Google Maps ↗ · via McLarty Treasure Museum, Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, A.E. Backus Museum & the Highwaymen, Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge, Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse
The one urban transfer day, done honestly on A1A and Ocean Boulevard rather than the turnpike: Palm Beach's Whitehall, where Flagler's railroad money went to retire, Delray, Fort Lauderdale's beach, Hollywood's Broadwalk, and the causeways into Miami. Little Havana for dinner and a window cafecito. Overnight Miami.
This day is a transfer or a local exploration day without nearby stops in the linked route catalogue. Follow the day plan above; do not add distant route highlights just to fill the schedule.
Navigate day 4 in Google Maps ↗
Card Sound Road if the toll booth is open, the Stretch if it is not, then the mile markers count down: Key Largo's reef at Pennekamp, Islamorada's tarpon at Robbie's, the old Seven Mile Bridge out to Pigeon Key on foot before the new one by car. Overnight Marathon.
An open-air conch shack on the old smugglers' road, serving conch fritters to bikers and boaters since the 1950s. The correct way to enter the Keys.
The actual 1912 steam launch from the Bogart-Hepburn film, rescued and running canal cruises. Bogie never came to Key Largo for the movie; the boat did, eventually.
A WPA crypt holding victims of the Labor Day storm, the most intense US landfall on record. It killed hundreds of WWI veteran bonus-army workers and finished Flagler's railroad for good.
A working sea-turtle hospital in a converted motel, running rescue, surgery and release since 1986. Book the tour; you will meet the patients.
The railroad workers' island village sits under the original Seven Mile Bridge; the restored old span is now a two-mile walk over open ocean. Golden hour here beats any postcard.
Navigate day 5 in Google Maps ↗ · via Alabama Jack's, The African Queen, 1935 Hurricane Monument
Bahia Honda's beach beside the gap in the old railroad bridge, the Key deer on Big Pine (slow down; they are the size of dogs and about as cautious), then the last bridges into Key West. The Mile 0 sign at Whitehead and Fleming, the Hemingway house and its six-toed cats, and the end of Flagler's coast, 42 bridges after you started counting.
The railroad workers' island village sits under the original Seven Mile Bridge; the restored old span is now a two-mile walk over open ocean. Golden hour here beats any postcard.
The Keys' best natural beach beside the dramatic broken arch of Flagler's Bahia Honda bridge. Swim where the ocean and the Gulf trade water.
A dollar-bill-papered pub hiding down a back road since the 1930s, in the middle of the National Key Deer Refuge. The knee-high deer own the right of way at dusk.
The end of US 1 at Whitehead and Fleming. The sign gets stolen constantly, the photo line never shortens, and the atlas officially runs out of South here.
Navigate day 6 in Google Maps ↗ · via Pigeon Key & the Old Seven, Bahia Honda State Park, No Name Pub & the Key Deer
A1A End to End: St. Augustine to Key West is a 6-day trip of about 520 miles.
It starts in St. Augustine.
It chains A1A: Flagler's Coast, The Space & Treasure Coast and The Overseas Highway.
Day 1: St; Day 2: Titusville; Day 3: Jupiter; Day 4: Miami; Day 5: Marathon; Day 6: Marathon → Key West.