Hidden Key West Walking Tours — Local services in Key West

RICHARD KNOWS KEY WEST!

He is incredible! Here is one of the first stories he told...

During the 1800s, Key West was an obscenely wealthy island. Here’s why!

The wrecking Industry built Key West.

Merchant ships would run aground on the coral reef as they were passing through the narrow and extremely shallow Florida Straits. When this happened, a watchmen would ring a bell and all of the salvage or wrecking companies would send a flat bottomed boat out to the shipwreck. The first company to plant a flag on the shipwreck had the right to salvage all of the ship’s merchandise and anything else of value.

The matter was then seen by a Key West judge and up to 30% of the merchandise was awarded to the salvage company and the wrecked ship’s captain would retain the rest.

This was considered payment for the “services” rendered by the salvage company, because, “had they not been there to assist in the cleanup, all of the merchandise and anything valuable would have been lost.”

A Captain John Geiger got creative and had his men instal posts with lanterns along the most treacherous and shallow section of water over the coral reef. Ship Captains would see the lanterns and navigate toward them, thinking they were following another ship through a safer channel of the straits and then, to their horror, they would hit coral and their journey was over.

Captain Geiger’s men would be waiting, ready to plant their flag and claim the right to clean up the wreck.

We have spent five days in Key West. Have been to two of the beaches, ate the famous royal red shrimp at Conch Republic, walked Duval Street end to end, visited Mallory Square, taken the obligatory photo at the Southernmost point and have had eaten the best Hogfish of our life at Cale Sole!

None of these things came remotely close to the experience that we had with Richard and Hidden Key West Walking Tours!

Richard spent an hour and a half telling us dozens of stories JUST LIKE THIS!

For the first time in five days, we feel connected to this island and feel genuine disappointment that we will be returning home in a few days.

If you enjoy learning about the place that you are visiting or are curious about how this crazy island became the insanely popular destination for so many people from all over the US, Europe and South America, YOU MUST BOOK A TOUR WITH RICHARD!

My only regret is that we didn’t take Richard’s tour THE VERY FIRST DAY WE ARRIVED!

Doing this will enrich the rest of your vacation on the island!

Book your tour two weeks before you arrive and plan it for day one of your vacation! Your future self...

Easy, Fun, Informative!

We had a great time doing the walking tour of the highlights, stories, and history of Key West. The guide, Richard, was engaging, entertaining, and extremely knowledgeable. His large wooden walking stick- shaped and painted like a flamingo and named Oliver – was a fun touch and made Richard easy to find. We were a group of 4 and there were 6 other people on the tour for a total of 10. It was a good group, and we have found on other tours over the years how important that is. Key West is nice and flat for easy walking, and we even summited the great Solaris Hill at a whopping 18feet above sea level! We truly enjoyed all the stories, and it was fun to stop for coconut water from actual coconuts at the little card along the street- very refreshing on a hot day. This was our first visit to Key West, and we thought the whole history about the Conch Republic and their “attempted at secession” was fun- especially when our Richard pulled out his actual Conch Republic Passport to show us and took time to explain the symbolism of the flag. Ending the tour at the beautiful Victorian Mansion which is the Southernmost House was great. Richard introduced us to Michael the owner, and we enjoyed some wonderful cocktails in that beautiful setting. Would highly recommend this tour. Not too overly structured and rigid– but nicely...

If you’re looking to learn more about the rich and interesting history of Key West, this is the tour to take. It’s an excellent tour packed with a ton of entertaining and varied stories from Key West’s past.

Richard was our guide, and he is a fountain of knowledge. His family has been in Key West since the 1920s, and he’s one of four official Key West historians. He hasn’t just studied the history - he’s also lived it.

We heard fascinating stories about Key West’s close ties to Havana, Cuba in the many decades before the US-Cuba embargo, gained a ton of insight into how the island’s wooden historical structures withstand pummeling from hurricanes, how the city went from being the wealthiest per capita to the poorest in 50 years, and much much more.

My husband and I both thoroughly enjoyed the tour, highly recommend it, and would definitely do another tour from...