MOLI VIEW™

Key Largo is the northernmost Florida Key. It's the first one you hit as you drive down US 1 and emerge out of the Everglades' river of grass and into this string of islands that hook between Florida Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Depending on traffic, you can get there in an hour from Miami. This is both good and bad: Key Largo is the most accessible key, but it's also the one where you're most likely to run into urban problems, like crime.

At the Pelican, for instance – our favorite place to stay in the Keys and a jewel of a find I'm sharing with you now because I love you, oh MOLI reader – someone once stole my flip-flops from the shore as I was out kayaking. The resort figured it was the same young couple they caught trying to load one of the Pelican's paintings into their car – and kindly reimbursed me for my footwear, which I had just bought down the road at one of my other favorite Key Largo establishments, Divers Direct.

Whatever: Having wandered up and down this Caribbean appendix to the U.S. many times in 20 years, I think that Key Largo has become my favorite key. Key West has the gingerbread houses and the gay-friendly nightlife – but it also has the roving drunkfest of Duval Street. Islamorada has the Kaiyo Asian restaurant and the amazing Casa Morada – but both are budget breakers in these tight economic times. At $200 a night, the Pelican ain't cheap – but for that price, you can get one of the waterfront rooms with your own private porch and watch the sun set over the water as you grill your fresh fish. It's a quick, easy getaway from the city – and even after only one night, you'll feel like you were in Jamaica, or the Bahamas, or Puerto Rico, or somewhere foreign and exotic and tropical. But you didn't have to fly, and your dollar isn't deflated here, and you can stop at Alabama Jack's to see some old-fashioned clogging (yes, clogging) and eat a bowl of chili on the drive home.

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