Sensational Keys Seafood, Sustainable Stone Crab

July 3, 2023 marks the bicentennial "birthday" of the Florida Keys — and in this episode, we meet a Key West-born “Conch” who’s lived in the Keys for half of those 200 years.

Join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley, who chats with 104-year-old Onelio Gonzalez, recently celebrating his milestone birthday in the continental United States’ southernmost island city.

He remembers the days when Ernest Hemingway resided in Key West, and when Harry S. Truman presided from the southernmost White House in the island city. And what was it like to ride Henry Flagler's Florida Keys Over-Sea Railroad, completed in 1912 and stretching from Florida’s southern mainland throughout the Keys? How were pineapples involved?

Listen to some of our favorite insights and takeaways from this series, celebrating what makes the 125-mile-long Florida Keys island chain so unique. You might hear a highlight from a favorite episode.

For more details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

What’s the significance of Mallory Square in Key West? What does Jimmy Buffett represent to the Florida Keys? And just what is The Conch Republic? 

We celebrate the Keys' fun, quirkiness and a fierce independence in this episode. Join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley in Mallory Square to catch the sunset. Learn more about the famous songwriter who embodies the Keys. Discover how the Keys became known as The Conch Republic after a U.S. Border Patrol blockade in 1982.

To learn about Mallory Square, go to  mallorysquare.com/sunset-celebration/. For more about The Conch Republic, visit conchrepublic.com.

For travel details inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

Why did President Harry Truman establish his Little White House in Key West? Where was he frequently spotted around town? And what is it like to ride in one of his presidential limousines? 

Find out as host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley and producer Jason Paton take you to Florida’s only presidential museum, the Harry S. Truman Little White House Museum. Clinton Curry, the museum's operations director, takes us behind the scenes to reveal the man the public didn't always see. And we take you for a ride in a 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, one of his official limos.

The Harry S. Truman Little White House Museum is open 365 days a year. For more, go to trumanlittlewhitehouse.org.

For further details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

What is sponging and how has it impacted the Keys? How did lighthouses save one industry, and end another? Why is Fort Jefferson – known as the "Gibraltar of the Gulf" – located 70 miles off Key West in the middle of the ocean? 

The story of the Florida Keys is inextricably intertwined with the seas that surround them. Join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley to learn about wreckers, sponging and a Civil War-era fort in the United States' most remote national park.

We're joined by the Florida Keys History Center's Corey Malcom, the Key West Art & Historical Society's Cori Convertito, and Historic Tours of America's Chris Belland. For more on the Key West Art & Historical Society, go to kwahs.org. The Florida Keys History Center is located in the Key West library: keyslibraries.org. Fort Jefferson details can be found at drytortugas.com/. 

For more details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

In 1985 off the Florida Keys, legendary treasure diver Mel Fisher and his team finally found the object of a deep-sea search spanning nearly 17 years. The Atocha shipwreck was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most valuable shipwreck treasure ever recovered, then worth an estimated $400 million.

Mel's son Kim Fisher, a treasure hunter himself, was one of the Atocha’s finders. Join him and host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley to learn what it was like to find sunken treasure that he and his family had been seeking for nearly two decades.

The Florida Keys History Center's Corey Malcom also shares history about how the Keys became a magnet for avid treasure hunters. For more information about Mel Fisher's Treasures, go to melfisher.com. The Florida Keys History Center, itself a treasure trove of Keys history, is located in the Key West Library: keyslibraries.org.

For more details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

What marine animal is considered the gardener of the coral reef? What role can rope and cement play in Florida Keys coral restoration? Join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley on this episode and find out.

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Superintendent Sarah Fangman joins us again as we dive into the world of coral restoration to learn about the unprecedented Mission: Iconic Reefs. You'll meet Ken Nedimyer, a coral restoration pioneer and founder of Reef Renewal USA, to learn about unique methods he's developing to restore coral on North America's only barrier reef. It all happens within the sanctuary.

For more on the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, go to floridakeys.noaa.gov. To learn how to get involved with Reef Renewal USA, check out reefrenewalUSA.org

For more details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

What's an aquatic tumbleweed? Can tiny, indigenous Key deer swim? And how does a barracuda trick its prey?

Find out as you kayak among the mangroves with host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley and producer Jason Paton. We join Bill Keogh, a naturalist, author, and photographer who guides us across the water and into hidden tree-lined canopies in the Lower Florida Keys. Listen to the wind, hear a yellow-crowned night heron, and feel nature's calm envelop you.

To book your own kayak tour with Bill Keogh, or to buy his book, the “Florida Keys Paddling Guide,” go to keyskayaktours.com.

For more details and travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.

In the Florida Keys, fishermen have the chance, every day, to catch a prize trophy fish. Islamorada, in fact, is known as the ‘Sportfishing Capital of the World.’

But that fish you catch can still swim on to live and fight another day. How? Through the work of Keys conservationists, forward-thinking fishermen and even artists.

Join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley to learn about catch-and-release sportfishing from two renowned charter captains, Matt Bellinger of Bamboo Charters in the Upper Keys, and Will Benson of World Angling in the Lower Keys. Learn why Florida Keys sportfishing -- part of the Keys’ lifestyle and heritage -- is legendary.

For details about Bamboo Charters, check out bamboocharters.com and for World Angling, go to worldangling.com.

For more travel inspiration, visit Fla-Keys.com. To call from the United States or Canada, dial 1 (800) FLA-KEYS or contact your travel advisor. Produced by Armchair Productions, the audio experts for the travel industry.