In the game
Trailer 2 gives you one of the shots that defines the Leonida Keys: a car pulling away down a long, low bridge that runs dead straight over water in two shades of blue, with nothing on either side but sky and the shimmer of the flats. It’s on screen for a couple of seconds and it says everything about how the Keys are supposed to feel.
It’s a clear match for the Seven Mile Bridge. The giveaways are the length (no other bridge in the Keys goes on like that), the low, flat deck a few yards above the water, and the pale ribbon of a second, older bridge running alongside. Fans lined up the trailer frame against the view from the Marathon end almost immediately, and it holds up.
The real place
There are actually two bridges here. The old one was built by Henry Flagler’s railroad between 1909 and 1912, part of the line that once ran all the way to Key West. When the 1935 Labor Day hurricane wrecked the railroad, the state bought the right of way, decked the bridges for cars and opened the Overseas Highway in 1938. The road bridge you drive opened in 1982; the old one was left standing beside it.
Today the drive takes about seven minutes, and the water color really is that absurd. Look right (west) on the way to Key West and you’ll see the old bridge with its missing span, a jagged gap that has been in more movies than most actors. Look down and you’ll often spot rays, and sometimes a tarpon.
The detail a GTA fan will recognize is the view from the Marathon end, where the road lifts onto the deck and the whole thing unspools in front of you. Stand at the old bridge entrance and it’s the trailer frame, minus the car.
Go there
Drive it, then walk it. The first 2.2 miles of the Old Seven Mile Bridge, from Marathon to Pigeon Key, reopened in 2022 for walkers and cyclists after a long restoration, and it’s the best free thing in the Middle Keys. Go early or late; there’s no shade. Pigeon Key itself is a tiny island with a museum about the railroad workers who lived there, reached on foot (about 45 minutes each way) or by a short ferry from Marathon; check the schedule and price before you go.
For food, the Marathon end has two Keys institutions: Sunset Grille and Raw Bar at the foot of the bridge, and Keys Fisheries back toward town, where the lobster reuben is a rite of passage. Both are casual and both can have a wait at sunset.
One honest warning: you cannot stop on the road bridge. There’s no shoulder, no pull-off and no photo spot, and people trying to make one cause accidents. Take your photos from the old bridge or its parking lot, which fills up on winter weekends.
Nearby
- The Overseas Highway: the bridge is the highlight of the whole road, so plan it as one drive.
- Bahia Honda State Park: ten minutes south, the other famous old bridge and the best beach in the Keys.
- Key West and Duval Street: 45 minutes on, where the road ends.
Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.