Miami to the Florida Keys: Every Way Your Guests Can Get Down

Road distances, shuttle and bus services, the one road problem, and how to tell fifty guests how to get to your wedding without answering fifty emails.

By Michael Willis · Last reviewed 2026-09-10.

Start with the distances

From Miami International Airport, along the Overseas Highway:

Key Largo, 58 miles. Islamorada, 76 miles. Marathon, 111 miles. Key West, 159 miles.

Source: Visit Florida Keys and Key West.

Those are road miles on a highway that runs about 113 miles across 42 bridges, with a mile marker system counting down from 127 near Florida City to zero in Key West. Addresses in the Keys are given by mile marker, which is why your venue's address may look like a number rather than a street.

The one road problem

There is one road in and one road out.

Everything else in this guide follows from that sentence. A single incident south of Homestead delays every guest still on the mainland, and there is no alternate route to take. Friday afternoon southbound is the worst of it, which is exactly when a wedding weekend's guests are traveling.

Plan the welcome party for later than feels necessary. Tell guests the drive takes longer than the map says. Nobody has ever regretted arriving with an hour spare.

The options, honestly

Drive. Rental car from MIA or FLL. Best for Key Largo, Islamorada and Marathon, where guests will want a car anyway. Worst for Key West, where parking in Old Town is scarce and expensive and the car then sits unused for three days.

Keys Shuttle. Door to door shuttle service between the Keys and both Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports, seven days a week. The right answer for guests who do not want to drive and are not arriving in a group large enough to charter.

FlixBus. Serves Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pine Key and Key West six days a week.

Greyhound. Scheduled stops between Miami airport and the Keys. The Miami to Key West bus takes about four hours.

Fly into Key West (EYW). Served by Allegiant, American, Breeze, Delta, JetBlue and United. Shortest journey, highest fare, and a thinner schedule than a mainland airport, which matters when a flight cancels the day before your wedding. Average domestic itinerary fare into Key West was $387 in late 2025, against $346 into Miami and $269 into Fort Lauderdale, per the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Key West Express ferry. High speed ferry to Key West from Fort Myers Beach and Marco Island, roughly three and a half hours. Not a Miami route, but worth knowing if part of your guest list is coming from Florida's west coast.

Marathon airport (MTH). No scheduled commercial service. Charter and private aircraft only. Guests cannot book a flight there.

Source for services and airport detail: Visit Florida Keys and Key West.

What to actually tell your guests

The mistake is sending a link to a map. The fix is three sentences on your wedding website, written once:

Fly into Fort Lauderdale or Miami, or into Key West if you would rather pay for the shorter trip. From the mainland it is a drive of roughly two hours to Islamorada or three and a half to four to Key West, on one road, so leave more time than the map suggests. If you would rather not drive, Keys Shuttle runs door to door from both mainland airports.

That is the whole thing. Guests who want more detail will ask.

Ground transport on the weekend itself

Arrivals, the welcome party, the wedding day and the departure run are four separate transport problems, and couples usually solve the wedding day one and forget the other three.

The welcome party is the one that bites. Guests arrive across a five hour spread, some in rental cars, some off a shuttle, some straight off a plane. Whether the welcome party works is mostly a transport question wearing a party's clothes.

We arrange ground transport across all four, through an independent travel advisor affiliated with Fora Travel, alongside the room block rather than separately from it.

Distances, services and airport detail published by Visit Florida Keys and Key West. Fares from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Schedules and operators change; confirm before traveling.

Methodology: The Miami mileage figures for Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, and the Lower Keys come from the Florida Keys tourism board's How to Get Here page as captured on July 10, 2025, and read on October 2, 2026. They are dated archive figures, not live-verified distances or newly measured airport routes.

Dated tourism board source. Current official home: Visit Florida Keys.