Situated 150 miles from Miami and just 90 miles from Havana, this island city has always maintained a strong sense of detachment, even after it was connected to the rest of the United States -- by the railroad in 1912 and by the Overseas Highway in 1938.

The rest of the Florida Keys are oriented to nature and the outdoors, but Key West has more of a city feel, with fine restaurants, galleries, shops, and museums of local history. As a tourist destination, Key West has a lot to sell -- an average temperature of 79°F, quaint 19th-century architecture, and a laid-back lifestyle. Few cities of Key West's size -- it's a mere 2 miles by 4 miles -- offer its joie de vivre.

Yet, as is often the case when preservation revives a once-tired town, Duval Street, Key West's main drag, is evolving into an open-air mall of T-shirt shops and tour shills. Mass marketers directing the town's tourism have attracted cruise ships, which dwarf the town's skyline, and Duval Street floods with day-trippers who gawk at the earringed hippies with dogs in their bike baskets and the otherwise eccentric locals.

Key West's diverse population includes native "Conchs" (white Key Westers, many of whom trace their ancestry to the Bahamas), freshwater Conchs (longtime residents who migrated from somewhere else years ago), gays (who make up at least 20% of Key West's citizenry), black Bahamians (descendants of those who worked the railroads and burned charcoal), Hispanics (primarily Cuban immigrants), recent refugees from the urban sprawl of mainland Florida, navy and air force personnel, and an assortment of vagabonds, drifters, and dropouts in search of refuge.

In April 1982 the U.S. Border Patrol threw a roadblock across the Overseas Highway just south of Florida City to catch drug runners and illegal aliens. Traffic backed up for miles as Border Patrol agents searched vehicles and demanded that the occupants prove U.S. citizenship. City officials in Key West, outraged at being treated like foreigners by the federal government, staged a mock secession and formed their own "nation," the so-called Conch Republic. They hoisted a flag and distributed mock border passes, visas, and Conch currency. The embarrassed Border Patrol dismantled its roadblock. The Conch Republic Festival, held each April and a truly great time to stop by, celebrates the secessionists' victory.