Bahia Honda State Park

Our week-long vacation in the Florida Keys was ah-mazing! I’ve been sharing a lot of posts and photos, and there’s more to come. We started our trip in the Upper Keys and stayed there for a few days before driving down to Key West.

Along the way to Key West, we stopped for a beach day at Bahia Honda State Park. Bahia Honda can be found shortly after you cross the Seven Mile Bridge leaving Marathon. This beach is gorgeous and in a place where there’s so much to do, this is the perfect spot for a truly relaxing rest stop.

This was our first trip to the Florida Keys, and if you’re thinking about planning your first trip, too, you might not realize that there aren’t an abundance of beaches in the Keys.

The Keys are surrounded by coral reefs which make for awesome diving, but does not make for wide sandy beaches. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any beaches, but you’ll have to plan ahead to get to them and Bahia Honda is worth adding to your agenda.

Bahia Honda State Park offers a lot of activities – fishing, camping, star gazing, etc. We really were interested in a beach day, so we spent our time near the water.

There is a fee to get in, but it’s very modest. It was $8 for our car with 4 passengers when we went in 2018. There are a couple of beach areas here, and when we visited the bay side was still recovering from Hurricane Irma damage and was not open. We have friends that visited a year before this hurricane tore through and loved Calusa beach, so if you get there and that’s open, go check it out!

Best Florida Keys Beaches

The water at Bahia Honda was clear and gorgeous. You can see right down to the bottom. However, the bottom isn’t always sandy and soft. See all the dark areas? That’s seaweed! It’s safe to walk through but a little weird on the feet. If you have water shoes, bring them.

The sun here is HOT. I suppose that goes without saying, but if you’re used to the Jersey Shore (hello, we’re from PA), you might not be used to Florida. Wear sun protection. A lot of it. Even some of the locals were taking their beach umbrellas right into the water with them!

There are some great photo opps with the Bahia Honda Railroad Bridge in the background. This was once part of the Overseas Railway which was destroyed in a hurricane in 1935. The gap in the bridge is to accommodate boat traffic.

We packed a few snack items to eat on the beach, and there is a snack bar in the area to buy other treats. We had ice cream, which melted almost faster than we could eat it! There’s a gift shop as well, in case you forget any of the essentials.

Check out the Bahia Honda State Park website for more details on all there is to do here. For us, it was a relaxing stop on our way to Key West and a great Florida beach day. If you want to spend more time there, there’s plenty to do!

The Florida Keys and Key West are the perfect place for a family vacation. Visit their website, and check out their social profiles for tons of ideas to help plan your adventure: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Bahia Honda State Park | Best Florida Keys Beaches