Although its been a few years since I stayed in Key Largo, there is plenty to do and see.
http://www.keylargo.org

Key West is less than 2 hours drive away...highway 1 just one long straight road, follow your nose.
Stop at the Visitor Info centre, get tickets,for the Conch Tour Train, jump on jump off.

You also have the John Pennekamp State Park close by, has diving trips etc.

One place to eat that still seems to be going strong is the Fish House
http://www.fishhouse.com

Have a great time.

I too would recommend the John Pennecamp Park.

thanx for the replies, id already heard of the national park so ill probably give that a visit. one last thing, when going out at night is it absolutley neccessary to drive cos i like to have a few beers. i assume there will be readily available taxi's?

We went to the Keys in 2005, 3 nights in Key Largo and 3 nights in Key West.

I personally would reconsider 4 nights in Key Largo. It is a lovely place but in fairness there isn't that much to do. John Pennekamp is amazing and you can easily spend a day and a half there. You can do numerous activities here, we rented kayaks and also did the glass bottom boat trip to the reef (not good if you suffer from sea sickness).

Aside from that the only other thing we did was relax. It is a very chilled out part of the world and it is nice, especially after some hectic time in Orlando, to just take a few hours out and really relax.

From Key Largo we also headed north to Homestead (I think) and found a good airboat ride place, just outside the Everglades NP. Great fun, better than any of the airboat rides in and around Orlando.

Of course weather will play a bit part in your plans. Fortunately in Key Largo we had 3 days of reasonable weather (after 8 days of awful June storms in Orlando) but when we headed down to Key West it rained every day.

If you can stomach another 2hrs, head down to Key West...amazing place. Try and stay for a night so you can experience the delights of Duval Street, not for the faint hearted.

As for your question re: car use in Key Largo. Yes, a car is the only real option but we too wanted to have a few beers one night and got the hotel to book a taxi to the Big Fish Grille (you will pass it on way down). Food was very good but a slightly uneasy atmosphere. Taxi wasn't cheap either at $10 each way, for about 3mins ride.

I would stay sober and drive around Key Largo and then head to Key West, put the car away for a night, maybe 2 and have your beers then.

Hope this helps

J

We were able to walk to some resturants near to us

theres not alot to do in key largo. we stopped off on the way to key west. when we asked the barmaid at our resort about the restaurant she said it closed at 10 pm and there was a restaurant called the fish house 2 miles away north of the mariners club. [where we were staying] and another place that opened till 4am 7miles away south.we went to the fish house for a meal. very nice.everything is very spread out. i would also say drive to key west. plenty of nightlife and yoiu don't need the car.

Take a look at Key Largo on Google EArth- it's very small. All the highlights are shown,you can click on some for photos.

Good advice in these posts. Key largo is very small and little to do. We stopped at most of the Keys. Key West is far better than all the others put together for night-life. DO NOT drink and drive.
October may be a problem with the weather to, it is still the season for you know what!!
Miami is great, hope you are staying on Miami Beach, great times had there, eating, drinking and watching the world go by, they tend to drive up and down showing off there vehicles at night.

i knew there wouldnt be a lot to do on key largo but key west was all booked up. after a week in orlando it will be nice to have a chilled out 4 nights in key largo as the partying can begin when we hit miami. i am staying in the riu miami beach which seems to be smack bang on the beach so happy days. by the way i am planning to drive to key west but not sure if ill stay the night.

Stay the night

was that an offer haha

I was just playing a Jimmy Buffett CD and I found you the perfect song for you to play while you're driving from Miami to Key West..... it's called Conky Tonkin' . It's fun,hope you like it.