Venture Out Resort: Cudjoe Key

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One of our goals for the first part of our trip was to get as far south as we could. Victory would be to stay on Key West, the southernmost point in the continental US (more on that in a bit). Alas, our need to book sites now due to the compressed timeframe meant we had to settle for what we could get.

What we could get was Cudjoe Key (Kuh-Joe). It's about 20 miles from Key West, and that ain't bad.

We can't do it every week, but every so often we'll splurge and stay at an RV "resort." I say "resort," because it's all relative. When you put "RV" in front of it, it immediately drops a few notches from whatever you are currently picturing in your mind as a "resort."

I bring this up because this was one of those times. There are a handful of state parks in the Keys, but they are booked months in advance. We had no shot at those. If we wanted to get to the Keys, we'd have to upgrade.

Some bright entrepreneur figured out that you can take a little bit of waterfront property and turn it into a lot of waterfront property by cutting dead-end canals into the shoreline. Picture a comb, where the plastic is land and the open space is water. The spine of the comb is the dumb land owner that didn't optimize his shoreline. The bristle side is the guy who's laughing all the way to the bank.

There was no availability at the tip of any of the bristles, so we ended up at the other end. The Atlantic is out beyond the edge of that curved bristle (ok, it's an imperfect analogy!).

The view from our "backyard"

I can't complain.

The kids and Julie settled into a schedule of:
  • Go to the pool until it gets too hot
  • Come back to the RV and do school
  • Once it cools down, go back to the pool
Tough life.

I worked. It's great getting on a video call, explaining to your coworkers that you are in the Florida Keys, and then telling them that you are working. It doesn't compute. But such is fulltime life on the road.

We traveled to Key West on two occasions during the 6 days we were there (I wasn't going to get that close to Key West and not go the rest of the way). We did the touristy stuff. We ate key lime pie. We took our picture at the Mile 0 sign (which we were told is the most stolen sign in the US, and the locks on the back of it suggest it's true). We cheered the sunset... twice. Pro tip: If you like people, watch the sunset with the throngs at Mallory Square; if you prefer a more laid back experience, watch it from Ft. Zach.

We visited the "Southernmost Point in the Continental US."

It's a lie

This is assuming you don't count the house right next to it, which is farther south. Or the State Park nearby, which is farther south yet. Or the naval base next to that, which contains the actual southernmost point in the continental United States.

I guess they weren't counting on mapping technology becoming so good when they erected that big fat lie.


To be fair, I do believe that this was the actual "Southernmost Point of the Continental US Marked By a Red, Black, and Yellow Concrete Buoy for Which People Stand in Line for a Photo." So it's got that going for it.
Location: 701 Spanish Main Dr, Cudjoe Key, FL 33042, USA

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