Do the Ernest Hemingway tour
See where the author lived, fished and drank in Key West
Although Ernest Hemingway was a full-time resident of Key West for only 10 years or so, his name is indelibly associated with the island in the American imagination. You can't swing a six-toed cat on Duval Street without hitting a T-shirt, fishing cap or coffee mug adorned with the author's likeness.
The two-story Spanish colonial home where Hemingway lived in the 1930s has become an obligatory stop on Key West's sightseeing circuit, but a quick tour of the house and garden (where descendants of the author's polydactyl felines still live) is hardly sufficient tribute to one of America's most influential writers.
Do visit the Ernest Hemingway Home & Musuem (www.hemingwayhome.com), and have a drink at Sloppy Joe's (www.sloppyjoes.com), the kitschy old watering hole where Papa hung out, but also make a point of bringing a few Hemingway classics to read on the plane or by the pool. A trip to Key West is a perfect opportunity to dust off your old copies of For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea or To Have and Have Not, a novel about Depression-era life in the Keys. And if you really want to get inside Hemingway's head, spend a day at sea angling for game fish, one of the author's favorite outdoor pastimes.
True fans should also consider attending the annual Hemingway Days Festival in July, a week-long celebration featuring public readings, a short-story contest, a catch-and-release marlin fishing tournament and a Hemingway look-alike contest.
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