Rent the car at the airport, settle the toll question at the counter rather than on the road, and plan one region per day. Florida is a car state: five of the six regions on this site have no useful public transport between their stops, and only Vice City works without a set of keys.
Fly into the right airport
Vice City, the Keys and the Everglades all start from the same two airports. Miami International (MIA) is 20 to 30 minutes from South Beach, with the rental car center and a Metrorail station in one complex, reached by a short automated train from the terminals. Fort Lauderdale (FLL) is 30 miles north, often cheaper, and 45 minutes to an hour from Miami Beach; take it only when the fare gap is real.
Key West (EYW) is a small airport with direct flights from a handful of eastern cities and short hops from Miami. The classic move is to drive down and fly out, or the reverse, on a one-way rental with a drop charge.
For Mount Kalaga, fly into Orlando (MCO): Ocala and Silver Springs are about an hour and a half away. For Port Gellhorn, Northwest Florida Beaches (ECP) is 25 to 35 minutes from Panama City Beach with rentals on site.
Renting a car and the toll question
Book before you fly, and early for December to April, when winter visitors and spring break empty the lots and prices climb. A basic car does everything on this site except the unpaved Loop Road in Big Cypress.
Florida’s tolls are largely cashless. Florida’s Turnpike around Miami, the Miami expressways, the Venetian Causeway, the Rickenbacker and the Card Sound Road bridge into the Keys take no cash; you pay by SunPass transponder or, at a higher rate, by a bill sent to the car’s plate. Alligator Alley is tolled at both ends and best treated the same way.
Rental companies answer with a toll program: a transponder or plate enrollment, tolls billed to your card, and a service fee on top, usually a few dollars for each day you use a toll, sometimes for every day of the rental once you have used one. Terms differ by company and change often, so read the current ones before you sign. The way to think about it: if your plan touches the Turnpike, Alligator Alley, Card Sound or the Venetian, accept the program; it beats a plate bill with penalties arriving weeks after you get home. If you are staying on Miami Beach and using only the free causeways, you can decline it and stay off the toll roads.
Driving realities
Miami drives fast and close; leave a gap on I-95 and stay out of the express lanes unless you mean to pay for them. The causeways are the pleasant part: the MacArthur is free and fast and lands you at the south end of Ocean Drive; the Venetian is slow, tolled and worth doing for its own sake.
On the Overseas Highway never stop on a bridge; most have no shoulder, and the restored Old Seven Mile Bridge is the one you walk. Speed limits drop to 35 through every Keys town, and the small towns on US-27 through the sugar country and US-301 in the north are patrolled hard where the limit falls at the town line.
From June to September expect a thunderstorm most afternoons; Florida law says headlights on when the wipers are on. Miami Beach streets flood in a downpour and on the fall king tides, so do not drive into water you cannot see the bottom of.
Miami without a car
For Vice City alone, skip the rental. South Beach is walkable end to end and better by bike than by car. Free trolleys run the length of Miami Beach and, on the mainland, through Brickell, Little Havana and Wynwood. Downtown, the Metromover is a free elevated loop through downtown and Brickell, and the best free view of the skyline in the city. From the airport, Metrorail reaches Government Center downtown in about 20 minutes for a couple of dollars.
Citi Bike Miami has docks on both sides of the bay and covers the Venetian crossing. The boat tours from Bayside and the rentals on Biscayne Bay are transport as much as tourism, and a water taxi links Bayside with Miami Beach on a limited schedule. Uber and Lyft fill the gaps; a cross-bay ride is usually $15-25.
Trains
Brightline runs from MiamiCentral downtown north through Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach to Orlando, where the station is inside the airport terminal. Miami to Orlando takes about three and a half hours; fares swing with the day and how far ahead you book. It is the sensible way to combine Vice City, Orlando and the springs: train up, rent a car at MCO for Ocala, fly home from Orlando.
The Keys
A car is the normal answer and the drive is the point; the Keys are one highway 113 miles long and every stop on the Keys road trip is beside it. The alternatives are flying into Key West, or the Key West Express, a passenger ferry from Fort Myers Beach that takes about three and a half hours each way and costs in the low hundreds round trip; check the seasonal timetable.
In Key West itself, put the car away. Old Town is a mile or two across, bikes and scooters are the local habit, and the city’s on-demand Key West Rides shuttle took over from the free Duval Loop bus in January 2026. Parking is scarce and most hotels charge for it.
The Everglades
A car, or an organized tour from Miami; tour companies run hotel pickups for a half day on the Tamiami Trail. Shark Valley is the one stop where the driving ends at the gate: a tram or a rented bike takes you around the 15-mile loop. There is no public transport to any of it.
The Panhandle
A car, full stop. Fly into ECP, rent on site, and plan on driving for everything. The Forgotten Coast is 150 miles of driving on its own, and the time zone changes from Central to Eastern between Mexico Beach and Port St. Joe, so a rental return or a flight can be an hour off from what your phone said at breakfast.
Drive times from Miami
| Destination | Region | Distance | Without stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Key Largo | Leonida Keys | 65 miles | 1 to 1.5 hours |
| Key West | Leonida Keys | 160 miles | 3.5 hours, 5 or more on a Sunday |
| Shark Valley | Grassrivers | 40 miles | 1 hour |
| Everglades City | Grassrivers | 85 miles | 2 hours |
| Clewiston | Ambrosia | 115 miles | 2 to 2.5 hours |
| Orlando | Brightline, MCO | 235 miles | 3.5 to 4 hours |
| Ocala | Mount Kalaga | 300 miles | 4 to 5 hours |
| Panama City Beach | Port Gellhorn | 590 miles | 9 hours |
What first-timers get wrong
Distances. Florida looks compact on a phone screen and is not; Key West to the Panhandle is a longer drive than Miami to Atlanta.
Tolls. People assume they can pay at a booth. Mostly you cannot, and the bill arrives weeks later with a fee attached. Decide at the counter.
Three regions in a day. Vice City, Grassrivers and the Upper Keys are each a day; put two together and you get a day of driving with a photo stop in the middle. That is why the trips here are built one region at a time.
Updated September 28, 2026. All guides