Dry Tortugas National Park
The true Southern Most Point!
Our adventure took us even further south -WHAT (actually the southern most point in the U.S. NOT the big buoy!) it's Dry Tortugas National Park.
We had reservations months in advance for Seaplane Adventures to fly us to the island. I cannot recommend this route more. It might be a little more expensive but the views were breath taking and taking off and landing on the water was a truly once in a lifetime experience. Check out more information here. We also saw lots of turtles (Dry Tortugas name sake) dolphins and several shipwrecks.
Once we landed and docked at Garden Key - the largest island in the park and home to Fort Jefferson, we headed for the visitors center (always our first stop - pro tip: Park Rangers are a wealth of knowledge and can save you lots of time. Go talk to them!)
We first decided to learn some history about Fort Jefferson. It’s an incredibly fascinating and sad history. After 30 years of building by hand the largest masonry structure (over 16 million bricks) in the United States, updates in weaponry deemed the fort unuseful and turned it into a federal prison.
It became an official National Park in 1992!
After our self guided tour of the fort we headed to the North Beach and coaling docs for some snorkeling (equipment included in seaplane price) lots of beautiful fish and interesting coral on the coaling docks- we even saw several large jelly fish!
Even if you aren’t a National Park junkie like me, Dry Tortugas should still be on your list if you are ever in Key West.
