Key West, FL

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llamer

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Can anyone with any knowledge of the Florida Keys, namely Key West, please start writing about the area, and how you can get by there, what your experiences were, where to camp, etc? I want to go but it seems like a difficult place to camp for free. A friend of a friend said that day labor pays fifteen dollars an hour, and everyone's drunk all the time. Sounds good to me. The nearby islands are supposed to be beautiful, and full of mosquitos.

your words will be appreciated! thank you!
 
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A few of my friends spent a winter there in 2001 and told me that there was a plethora of beer dumpsters... also lots of key lime pie in the trash... lots of places to camp if you can make it to other islands by hitching rides on peoples boats... which apparently --- isn't too hard.

also lots of bikes abandoned around town that are easy to fix up. asshole cops and tons of homebums though from what they said.
 
The weather is warm, coldest is about 50 Degrees F.

There was a beach next to the Hyatt hotel that was called "deadbeat beach." There were several kids there and it looked like they had a squat or camp set up. Intersection of Front and Symonton St. This is the opposite end of the island from the US1 bridge and on the opposite end of Duval St from the Southernmost Point marker. In the "straight" section of the island. It is mostly tourists that are drunk.
You can busk/perform during the daily sunset celebration at the cruise ship dock (right near "Deadbeat Beach") but the performance locations are controlled and determined by lottery. Some of the acts are pretty elaborate (and pretty good) and you may have to audition if you want a shot are real tourist money. Otherwise they will chase you off the preformance areas and you'll need to establish a more clandestine location.
You can take a ferry to the Dry Tortugas NP and camp there but it's expensive and there's no water (BYO).
Go see the Key Deer on Big Pine Key.
 
Key West is a great place, its the first place I went when I decided to leave,my friend made it out to sound like it was a tropical paradise, its really just a concrete shithole surrounded by staff infested water. I been back there alot since, Ive also been to jail there so watch out, its a real rich town. So KW is 3x6 miles big(give or take) You got Higgs beach which is kind of a local beach, real scummy durin the season youll find anywhere from rainbow hippies to scumfuck drunks sittin under palm trees, and of course any time of year youll find a million homebums on that beach. Got Duval good place to make money and get adopted by drunk college hookers for the night, right next to duval is simonton beach aka bloodshed beach(this beach is about 30 yards long inbetween 2 hotels (you will only find the bravest yuppies there, but they still keep there distance) where all the severely drunken homebums are always kickin each others asses, but there all pretty cool I know most of them by name. theres a "drop-incenter" there they got like 2 mini hotel shampoos and a broken toothbrush in a shoe box, they basically put all there funding into a badass recording studio, which they will let you use. Conch republic rum(local rum 7$ a litre) good shit. Mind your P's and Q's otherwise the cops will run your ass in. Best dam feedings ive ever been to, id say go down there just for the feedings. Good luck finding a camp site.
theres no freight after miami, but they have a tri rail that you can get on that starts in palm beach that will get you to miami, then theres city trains, take that to the bottom of the line get off, get a city bus to homestead you will wait at a wal mart another bus will take you to marathon (halfway point down the keys) another bus there take you right to duval st. You might see me out there sometime mid winter.
 
wow that is some really great information to know, thank you all!

is hitching the HWY1 as easy as it seems? or are florida state highway cops real assholes? and can you, CLEAN, comment on what severegoat said about available bikes to fix up? any abandoned houses or shit like that? are coconuts and mangoes growing everywhere? let's go right now!
 
simonton beach (dead-beat beach) is cool. the local drunks can get a bit aggro on this beach sometimes tho. if you can (and they haven't torn it down yet for construction of condos) try and hitch a boat ride out to Christmas Tree Island... there are fun parties out there sometimes.... or if you're brave (or stupid) enough do what i did and swim across to it.
ummm... you can basically stay drunk there 24/7 it's not hard. Duval street is always easy to get drunk fer free (and you can drink in public and the cops won't really hassle you, as long as its in a cup). It's easy to find a free bike somewhere, but it's just as easy to have it stolen. (you'll want to find a bike to get around in key west - the soup kitchen is a ways from downtown. DO NOT sleep on any beaches in key west - it could be an automatic 30 days in jail. yes i said 30 DAYS...
there is an open parking garage i used to crash on the top floor - near the Coast Guard station that is nice and has no mosquitos/bugs.
Also - be careful hitchhiking to Key West from miami. try and find a straight shot there because police do not like people hitching that length of road. if you're hitchhiking OUT of key west , it doesn't matter as much because i think the police are glad to see the homeless leave the area.
hope this helps some. have fun. hope ya like pirates..... say hello to K-9 for me if you see him
 
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llamer said:
Can anyone with any knowledge of the Florida Keys, namely Key West, please start writing about the area, and how you can get by there, what your experiences were, where to camp, etc? I want to go but it seems like a difficult place to camp for free. A friend of a friend said that day labor pays fifteen dollars an hour, and everyone's drunk all the time. Sounds good to me. The nearby islands are supposed to be beautiful, and full of mosquitos.

your words will be appreciated! thank you!
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It's been a 1000 years since I squatted in the Keys [1979-83] but although it's always changing down there, some things remain surprisingly the same. GET a bicycle first off. You can camp out till May and then the mosquitoes will devour you. Try to find a boat to babysit or squat in for summer. But the rest of the USAis beautiful in summer so why stay?.. Key West is a very metaphysical place. It will love you or hate you. It loves me and bestowed it's gifts......... I checked Google and one favorite squat still looks good but no guarantees. Bike or hitch out to Big Coppit Key at Mile Marker 10. Then hang a right, ocean side at Boca Chica road #941...go almost to the end [3miles] at Giger Key. The road hugs the shore then veers off leaving some land on your left ocean side. This is where you squat. The road dead ends a little further.
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It's a poor man's dream and nightmare at the same time. Tons of high turnover temp work, but everything is astronomically priced. Perfect weather all the time, but unrelenting heat and little space to escape from it. Lots of trickle-down food and goods from the tourism, but strict police enforcement because they have an image to uphold.

From what I hear of my father's days hitchhiking down there, people have sort of ruined the place. It's full and has been capitalized on. When I'm there for a week or two I sometimes have trouble keeping myself occupied, yet I don't want to leave and still get the feeling that there's a lot of magic hiding behind the scenes. The locals can be very guarded until you gain their trust. They're used to people shitting on their town and then flying home or getting back on their cruise boat.
 
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