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In pictures: Miami & Key West Florida in a Ford Mustang

12th February 2025, 09:05 by Deepankar Sadekar

There was no plan for this vacation. We just wanted to chill at beaches, soak in the sun, enjoy the beautiful white sands and dip in the pristine aqua blue waters.

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Prologue

Decembers are always so festive out here in US, it always brings a lot of cheer, festivity and fun to the entire month with expectations that all holidays bring-Travel, Food, New Places to explore.

We have been always going to Boston every December to meet family but, this time decided to do something different as my sis and family were travelling to Puerto Rico and we decided to do something similar. We wanted to get out of the cold and rains for a week so the planning started in mid_November.

I’m fortunate to have visited 29 states out of 50 states in the US. Many on pleasure and some on work. So I had to hit the 30th state mark.

We focused on Hawaii and quickly discarded as the flights and hotels in December were ridiculously expensive with daily tariff even hitting $500/night.

Next focus was on Mexico, never been to this country so we looked at Cancun and the costs were similar so we dropped that as well.

Florida has always been on our wishlist and we decided to visit the “Sunshine State” and December to February is the best time to visit as the weather will be in 70-80’s otherwise this state is known for its humidity and extreme heat for rest of the year. The flights and hotels weren’t lot cheaper than what we saw for Hawaii but, it was still about 20% cheaper so we hopped on to this plan.

My primary bucket list was to drive from Miami to Key West over the Atlantic Ocean- A beautiful 200 mile drive that I wanted to do in an open top muscle car.

Booked the Seattle-Miami roundtrip flights and hotels were booked for 2 nights in Key West, Florida and 6 Nights in Miami, Florida. We chose Hilton in Keywest and Hyatt Place in Miami.

Next step was to book the car. I was clear that I wanted an open top muscle car. Last time, we hired a Dodge Challenger so this time, wanted to do a Ford Mustang.

I was looking for the V8, 5.0 Liter models but, they were few and super expensive.

So, I had to settle for the base model which didn't excite me much. It was Eco Boost Premium with just 320 horsepower. I got the deal for $120/day with insurance included. It was waiting for us at FLL airport when we landed after our red-eye flight.

There was no plan for this vacation. We just wanted to chill at beaches, soak in the sun, enjoy the beautiful white sands and dip in the pristine aqua blue waters.

And, of course being a hard core foodie, enjoying different cuisines- We didn’t touch Indian food in the 8 days we were in Florida. It was only American, Cuban, Mexican, Venezuelan and Peruvian food that we enjoyed for entire period of our vacation.

Long Haul Flight- This is the biggest pain. 6+ hours is too much.