My husband and I were thinking about driving from Miami to Key West over Memorial Day (May 27-Jun 3). Our plan is to drive straight down and then work our way back up by stopping at various dive operations. Can anyone tell me what I should expect regarding traffic? From what I have read, it should normally take around 4 hours. How long should I expect to the drive to be if I leave on Saturday, May 27th (Memorial Day Weekend)?

While I am not a fan of Card Sound Road, I'm going to suggest you take it on your way down. The drawbridge at Jewfish Creek on US 1 will be very busy on Saturday morning and traffic will get backed up. Once you get past that, you should be okay. Maybe more like 5 than 4 hours. But you'll stop for lunch at some point. And why hurry? The entire island chain is a bit of paradies.

Depends on what time of day you leave as to how long it will take you to get from Miami to Key West...and back. Our son drove from Ft. Myers to Key West over Memorial day week end a couple of years ago and it took him 8 hours to get there and almost 10 to get back. There had been a bad accident in the Keys that held him up going down, and he said the traffic coming out of the Keys was horrendous on Sunday--and he left his sisters fairly early in the morning. It normally takes about 5-6 hours to do the same trip on a non-holiday/non-week.

DH and I did this exact drive several years ago over the MM day w/e. The drive is beautiful but the traffic can be a bear. We must have been there at the same time a mamajo's son, because we were stopped dead in traffic for almost three hours. There was a major accident with deaths which completely shut the two lane highway down. It took us 8 1/2 hours to make it to key west.

But even after that experience I would recommed doing the drive. It is just beautiful.

You drive time down depends upon what time of day you are leaving. If you are able to leave Miami pretty early in the morning, for example 6 am, you really won't have any traffic issues involving volume, and your chances of being stuck in accident traffic are also much less. If you can't leave Miami until after 9 am; well, that is a different story. Then you are looking at 5 hours and maybe longer. I also agree with Keysmom about Card Sound Road; unless you can leave super early you should take it.

I'd consider something a little different. Since you have a week in the keys, but you're leaving on Saturday -- the WORST traffic day, why not just go to Largo for the first night or two? In other words, work your way down to Key West instead of working your way back. Spend the first couple of days, when it is really busy, in the upper keys, and then arrive in Key West during the week a day or two after Memorial Day. Unless you are seeking the packed action of Key West on Memorial Day itself, I'd think this would be a much better option. And you'll be able to pretty much breeze all the way back to Miami on Saturday, June 3 when all the traffic will be heading down, rather than up.

Neopolitan-Sounds like they want to go diving when working their way back north. If they do their diving on the front end of the trip they will be doing their dives on the holiday weekend....perhaps not the best option if you don't want to share the water with a zillion other people...

Wow....thanks for all the information. That is very helpful. My significant other can be an even worse bear when he is stuck in traffic. We may wait until a non-holiday weekend to make the trip

Stay off South Beach Memorial Weekend unless you are a young partying twenty something.

It is Urban Hip Hop Weekend and 300,000 kids descend on South Beach. Nothing but bling and rap.