I went to Key West twice in early March about ten years ago - during my college spring break. Unless things have changed, Key West is crawling w/drunken college students that time of year. You might want to consider a different time frame, or possibly staying on one of the lower key Keys. Believe me, there is no peace and quiet on Key West during Spring Break!!!

Most rental car places will give you a map and for heaven's sake don't pull it out and read it in a bad area. Study it before you leave the rental car lot. Some rental comapnies have gps systems available, Hertz for one.

As for the drive down, we have flown into both Miami and FLL. Usually you can get better deals into FLL on flights. We always stay the night in FLL and get up early in the am to make the drive down to Key West. You miss the traffic.

We visit the Keys often (my inlaws live in Homestead and we're in Orlando area). This past Sep was the first time we ever flew into Key West. If you've never driven US 1 to Key West it is worth. The drive is pretty and there are lots of things to see, places to stop, (Seven Mile bridge made famous when Schwarzenegger pulls Jamie Lee Curtis out of a limo and into a helicopter in whatever movie that was!, great restaurants, fabulous snorkeling in Key Largo, Bahia Honda SP & beach, tiny little native key deer on Big Pine Key I think, endless semi-outdoor bars & restaurants, deep sea fishing guides out of Islamorada, and more). I agree with those that said having a car in Key West is more trouble and expense---parking is very limited and some places charge a lot to park. It's such a compact island you can either walk (alot) or we rented mopeds this last trip. What a hoot! We had never ridden/driven motorized bikes or motorcyles or anything before so we were tentative at first. But it was such fun, we learned quickly and we were all over the island and saw more on our mopeds than we ever had. The only drawback is the helmet hair!!! We drove our mopeds thru the cemetary there---it was fascinating---alot are above ground crypts because the limestone acquifer is at ground level. But graves going from current to the 1800's as I recall, some very ornate. Some very funny things written on some of them---one was from the town hypochondriac that read "I told you I was sick"! We also have done the Dry Tortugas/Fort Jefferson trip and would highly recommend it. The snorkeling is good most of the way around the Fort walls, the tour of the Fort is interesting with some good photo opportunities, and we found the boat trip out and back picturesque and fun(frozen drinks on the way back, chatting with people you met on the way out and while there). We saw flying fish literally flying away from the boat, various birds on the trip and on the island sanctuary that is attached to the key the Fort is on.

We've never been in March, but the weather will be fabulous for sure.

Have a great trip!

It looks as if someone else already answered your question Patrick, but I can see the confusion... I actually have one specialty plate and one "sunshine state" plate. I believe they changed from county names to "sunshine state" in 1997. So that is now the generic plate for anyone who doesn't choose one of the specialty plates. (My own personal choice- "Keep kids drug free"!)