My 75 year old Father in law just left "No Name Key" after 22 years down there.
The electricity poles and hordes of Nouveau Riche Yankees chased him out.
Also,
He is losing all his long time friends down there.
And they are dead, dying, or starting to die.
He was the youngster when he retired down there from the fire department here in Broward.
I am seeing a lot of change for the better down there.
The Keys are not what they once were, they never were what they once were.
The place has always been in a flux of change.
It's cheap at times.
It's expensive, more often than not.
It is unique.
Druggies and drunks abound.
Both great and horrible service is standard there.
About 19 families own all of the commercial real estate for 100 miles.
Rents are high, unless one of these real estate owning locals like you, enjoy you, and want you around.
The Keys are in fact a series of VERY small towns that are very interconnected.
Its like a long skinny farming town as far as I am concerned.
I have built several projects down there.
Key Largo Municiple Center.
A Wastewater Treatment plant.
Key West High School.
Plantation Key CVS.
I would typically stay down there anywhere between an overnight to as long as three weeks at a time.
I personally start crawling the walls after about four or five days down there.
But from my home, I can be in Key Largo in about 100 minutes.
And I can be in Key West in about three hours and 15 minutes on a good day.
I see a lot of really cool stuff coming in to Islamorada and some other areas.
A lot of young investors are coming in.
Very nice restaurants.
Art galleries.
Breweries.
There is still a good quantity of the old side of the road tourista crap kitsche down there.
There are still a lot of T-shirt shops and dive shops everywhere.
But I believe that The Keys are going to turn into Bermuda within the next hundred years.
Very exclusive.
Very expensive.
Very upscale for the most part.
As the named storms come through, and blow all those aluminum trailers off the rocks, they're not going to be allowed to put them back.
Slowly everybody is being compelled to give up their septic systems.
And the water quality is improving.
More and more writers, artists, brewmasters, fine craftsmen/persons will make their way down there.
More and more people will be telecommuting as time goes on.
So the keys in my opinion, are changing.
But they have always been changing.
I started going down there when I was a kid about 1972.
If I had an inexhaustible supply of money I would definitely have a house down there.
However, I do not, will not, have an inexhaustible supply of money anytime soon.
But the good news for me, is that I do have friends who do have inexhaustible supplies of money and they have houses down there now.
And they have spent entirely too many years trying to figure out how to have an inexhaustible supply of money.
I on the other hand, have an inexhaustible supply of the ability to find lobster and fish.
So my friends invite me down there often.
The way to do well in The Keys is to just be a great person.
Be reliable.
Be punctual.
Be polite.
Be sober.
Be adaptive.
Network, network, Network!!!!
If you have any kind of a unique skill,
somebody in the keys wants you helping them.
And they will pay you for it.
And the Keys will will beat a path to your door for your services, ability, or camaraderie.
Chug
Off to see the lizard in the Hot Water of the Barometer Soup in Margaritaville atop the Volcano.
(But I don't wear flip flops....EVER!)
For what it's worth...it's NEVER enough!
