The Best Hotels to Book in the Florida Keys

A gleaming white statement on a white-sand beach, close to where the Seven Mile Bridge enters Marathon, Tranquility Bay delivers the Florida Keys you’ve always imagined. White wooden verandas look out over the sea from the two-story beach houses, palm fronds dance in the breeze and garden rooms offer glimpses of green through Venetian blinds. Full-sized kitchens with giant fridge-freezers elevate the beach houses into sophisticated self-catering spaces.

Palm fronds tickle the frontage of this gorgeous Key West mansion, which could have been plucked from a black-and-white movie. Whirring fans circle gently overhead on the terrace and balcony, and rooms spill from the main building into cottages in the grounds. Handsome antique writing desks, four-poster beds, cane armchairs and eclectic works by Key West artists give the rooms an old-time feel, conjuring the atmosphere of the island’s heyday.

Occupying prime grounds in Tavernier on Key Largo, the Coconut Palm Inn has been welcoming guests to the Keys since 1947, with a broad waterfront frontage facing a stretch of blue water and the hotel’s boardwalk jetty. Airy rooms with period flourishes have terraces enveloped by a lush tropical garden, and the expansive suites face onto the hotel’s palm-dotted beach. All have little details which recall the building’s history, such as Audubon Society bird prints – a nod to the original owners’ favorite hobby.

A vintage charmer in downtown Key West, Orchid Key Inn fits its name – orchids erupt in the courtyard garden, which surrounds an alluring geometric pool, and rooms are decorated in a bright, summery palette that brings the colors of the beach, sea and town into the living spaces. It’s an understated oasis in a handy location for the historic center, the shoreline and Fort Zachary Taylor, at the very end of the Keys.

It’s all about the sea at this stand-out-from-the-crowd hotel that brings a bit of industrial chic to the Florida Keys. Take a drink out onto the terrace and balconies, and the views conjure dive trips, fair winds and deep-sea fishing. Looking in the other direction, it’s all about exposed timber, steel angles and smooth concrete. Rooms have acres of glass to let in the views, along with clean white lines, lush linen and warm-toned woods.

Walk about 300ft (91m) from this low-key but luxurious Key West hotel and you’ve gone as far west as you can go in the Florida Keys without tumbling into the sea. Set inside a classic, weatherboard-fronted Key West house, the Saint is small and intimate, with a tucked-away garden pool, and high-style rooms with mirrored furniture, iHome digital sound systems, crisp linen and ocean-blue ceilings. There’s a restaurant and bar, and more great dining in the grid of streets right outside.

Two blocks south from the historic Key West cemetery, the Grand is as unpretentious and easygoing a stay as you’ll find anywhere in the Florida Keys. Behind gently nodding palms and an airy veranda, you’ll find cute, cozy rooms with colorful bits of art and their own private entrances, set around a shady, tropical yard. The house has a classic Key West story – it was built as dormitories for cigar-rollers during the 1880s. On-site parking is an extra plus.

The Ocean Key serves up the full tropical package, slotting seamlessly into its Key West setting. Smart, summery rooms with day-beds on the veranda look directly onto a vivid sweep of turquoise blue, with passing yachts for company. Colorful wooden chairs and tables, shaded by sun umbrellas, fill the hotel’s private jetty, and huge windows bring the swish of the Gulf of Mexico into the room as you sleep.

A lavish wedding cake of a mansion in the old town in Key West, Amsterdam’s has instant star quality. Behind the historic facade, with its dormers, wooden shutters and whitewashed balustrades, rooms have an easy Key West feel, with carved, curved canopy beds, timber floors and patchwork bed-covers. The name comes from the villa’s original owner, William Curry – Florida’s first self-made millionaire. Sip a long drink on the curving veranda and you’ll be transported back a century.