Overseas Highway, Florida

Florida’s Overseas Highway is a world-famous scenic highway. It consists of 42 bridges that connect the Florida Keys to the Florida mainland, known as one of the most beautiful highways in the world. Built in the 1930s, the Overseas Highway follows the path of a now obsolete railroad track that once crossed over the Florida Keys. Today, the 113-mile Overseas Highway operates as the southernmost leg of US 1 and extends from mainland Florida to Key West. As the highway skips from island to island, drivers get a full view of the magnificent, turquoise waters surrounding them.

The Overseas Highway is an amazingly popular road trip because of its beautiful ocean views, and because it links the tourist hotspots of Miami and Key West. It is measured by a series of mile markers; a system that began in the early 1900s, when the route was established as a railway. Driving down the Overseas Highway, visitors will see many of the old bridges alongside the newer ones. Some have become popular fishing piers, inhabited by patient anglers awaiting action at the end of their lines. Besides the natural beauty along the route - tidal flats, and teal waters dotted by distant islands - the Overseas Highway is simply an engineering marvel. Its concrete stretches across impossible expanses of water, the Atlantic spreading out to the left, the Gulf to the right.