-I'm in a destination that's a long string of coral islands that stretch beautifully across the sea and ultimately forms the southernmost tip of the continental U.S., a place that has given inspiration to literary greats, a sitting president, and just about everyone in between, and though it's considered to be the land of the eternal vacation, there's a passionate community here that seeks to protect all the things we as travelers want from it, from shimmering water to vibrant marine life as well as a culture that sets it apart from any other place in the United States.

People may come here to party, but they stay because there's so much more.

I'm exploring the Florida Keys and Key West.

I'm Samantha Brown, and I've traveled all over this world.

And I'm always looking to find the destinations, the experiences, and, most importantly, the people who make us feel like we're really a part of a place.

That's why I have a love of travel and why these are my places to love.

Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" is made possible by... -We believe watching the world go by isn't enough.

That's why we climb... pedal... and journey beyond the beaten path, on storied rivers, with a goal of making sure that every mile traveled turns into another memory.

You can find out more at amawaterways.com.

-To travel is to live, and at AAA, we've been passionate about travel for over 100 years.

That's why we created AAA Vacations, member travel experiences around the world.

Learn more at AAA.com/LiveTV.

-All the untamed beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains experienced on a journey by rail.

Rocky Mountaineer, proud sponsor of "Places to Love."

-The Keys and Key West have a culture all of their own, and it really can all be summed up with two words, and that is "laid-back."

I'm not even going the speed limit.

That's how laid-back I am right now.

A key is actually a small island, and there are hundreds of them along this skinny stretch.

A little later, I'll be spending time in Marathon in the middle keys, but right now, I'm heading towards what may be the most famous of all the Florida Keys, Key West.

So one would believe here in Key West that no one actually eats here, that everyone lives sort of on a drinking diet.

-Yes.

-♪ You've been ridin' 'round town ♪ ♪ 'Round town, 'round town, 'round town ♪ -I assume that's not true.

-No.

It's a common misconception.

We have really good food here on the island.

I'm Annalise Smith, and I grew up here in Key West.

I like to take small groups to restaurants that I grew up eating at.

We have over 300 restaurants just on this little two-by-four-mile island.

-I love how this rooster is just joining us on a walk.

-Yes, he is.

They're all over Key West.

They're everywhere, and they're protected.

-They are?

-Yeah.

-So they won't be on the menu that we're going to -- -No, no, no, no.

No chicken today.

-[ Laughs ] -We're going to El Siboney, which is a little Cuban restaurant right here in this neighborhood, and it is the best Cuban food on the island.

-So I've been to Key West probably five times.

I have never been there, so I have totally missed out.

-You have, but you're going to go now, so... -I'm now here.

-...it's going to make up for it.

-Good.

♪♪ So, this restaurant looks like it has been here forever, and I mean that in the best possible way.

-It's been here a while.

It's been here about 50 years.

It's since changed names, but one thing has remained constant, and that's the menu.

Their recipes have not changed.

-And there's quite a few entries.

-There is.

It can be a little overwhelming when you open up the menu.

-Yeah.

But what would you recommend?

-If you could only try one thing off this menu, and, in my opinion, is what represents Cuban food, it has to be the number one.

Number one, the roast pork, lechon asado.

-Roast pork, and with all these other items, that means I need to come back about 20 more times and just work my way through the entire menu.

-Exactly, go down.

-Okay, so number one.

-Start with one.

-Excellent.

So this is an authentic meal here.

-This is it.

What you have here, really quick, I want to show you.

So you have the pork, the rice, beans, and plantains, and then you see the lime, so they expect you to get this lime and actually squeeze it all over the pork.

-Ah, okay.

-It's actually bringing out the citrus flavors of the marinade in the pork.

-That is awesome.

That is so good.

-It's so flavorful.

And you said that you didn't put hot sauce on your pork.

You won't ever see Cubans putting hot sauce on their food.

Common misconception -- Cuban cuisine is not at all spicy.

-And you are Cuban.

-Yeah.

My grandparents came over here from Cuba in the 1950s.

They actually live four blocks right down this restaurant.

-Your grandparents still live four blocks -- -They still live down there.

And my grandmother, although she is the best Cuban food matriarch cook, when she gets tired, she walks down here and comes to this restaurant.

-Well, that says it all.

When the Cuban grandmothers come here for a break, you know you're in the right place.

-This is my favorite part of the meal, Cuban coffee.

-Oh, boy.

It is the best.

It is the elixir of Gods.

-So basically, Cuban coffee is very strong, but it's just as sweet as it strong.

So Cubans believe that sugar is a food group.

So what they do with their coffee here is, they have this machine.

You know, it's a handpress espresso machine.

What they'll do is, they'll put a layer of sugar.

They release a little bit of espresso, and they sit there making a paste with the sugar and the espresso.

Then they release a little bit more espresso, put a little bit more added sugar, keep mixing, and it's diluted in there.

So like I said... -Wow.

-...half-and-half, sugar and coffee.

Okay, so you're going to get one piece of bread.

-Okay.

-Now, Cuban bread is so buttery and delicious.

It has lard in it, which is the main ingredient, but what you're going to do is, you're going to dip your bread in your coffee.

-No.

-And it's almost going to be like a tiramisu, the way the coffee, the butter, the sugar, and the bread are all working their magic together.

-Oh, my gosh.

I'm, like, making a cake in my mouth.

-Yes.

♪♪ -Perfect.

-It's so good.

So this is a traditional breakfast here on the island.

-This is breakfast?

I feel it's dessert, as well.

-Mm-hmm.

-Being born and raised in Key West, Annalise knows the side streets you might never venture down that reveal a slice of island life you didn't know existed.

-So this is a little seafood market.

It's actually been grandfathered into this neighborhood.

It's called Tomasita Seafood, and it's owned by Tomasita and her husband, Rigoberto.

So they're actually sitting right here on the porch.

-Oh.

-This is their home, but this is their family business, and so he was the fisherman.

He'd go out and catch his fish, and she would sell it, but now it's their adult son that goes out, and -- -You know, it says it's open, but there's no one in here.

-Yeah, so a lot of the times, it's way too hot for Tomasita to sit in here, especially during the summer months, so what you do is you ring this bell, and it's a string attached to a bell, and she's in her air-conditioned home, and she hears the bell, and she'll come out and sell you whatever's on the sign.

-Wow.

That's great.

-Hola!

-Hola!

[ Both chuckle ] ♪♪ -And now it's time for some dark rum, light rum, blackberry brandy, banana liqueur plus orange juice, cranberry juice and pineapple juice to create the illusion of something nutritious.

It's the Rum Runner, and it really hits the spot when enjoyed on a front porch.

So is this the official drink of Key West then?

-It's a pretty signature drink.

[ Both chuckle ] -There's actually a lot of official drinks in Key West, and this is one of them.

-Oh, that's so good.

-It is.

♪♪ -What strikes me as really amazing is, we are maybe a few blocks from famous Duval Street... -Sure.

-...and this is, like, this little hidden nook that has a tremendous amount of history just in this little spot.

-It's in the Harry Truman Little White House.

By the time President Truman needed a place to go and relax during his presidency and work, this was the spot they chose.

-It's amazing because as a president, you get to pick wherever you want to have your retreat.

Why do you think he picked Key West?

-I believe he picked Key West because our citizenry, our city is very welcoming, and it was a very active military city, as well, and so we had the full compliment of services available to a president, and he would be able to still run the nation from here and still have the ability to relax here.

-So you really love the history of this island, and you know it on a very personal level.

-Very personal level.

My family came here in the late 1830s.

-To do what?

-To salvage shipwrecks and to build schooners and to just partake in this new industry that was taking off here.

-Wow.

Can you walk inside?

Can you see parts of his life, Harry Truman, as he ran the country from this little spot in the world?

-Absolutely.

So the museum today, the Truman Little White House Museum, we've recreated 1949 inside of the house.

After President Truman was re-elected in 1948, he needed a true presidential destination, and so the Navy decided to redesign the house to make it appropriate to a president.

-And what's appropriate to a president?

A poker table built for him and for this house out of the local mahogany complete with cigar holders made out of three-inch shell casings.

Hey, it's a military town, but you can't be the president without one of these.

This is actually his presidential desk?

-Yeah, this is his Key West presidential desk.

-This is very small.

-Yeah, it's very small.

Yeah, it's certainly not the desk of the Oval Office.

-Sure, I guess.

-But, yeah, you know.

But imagine still having to complete 200 to 400 tasks a day, you know, right here at this desk.

-So I am having a much better time in Key West than the 33rd President of the United States.

-[ Chuckles ] -How many visitors to Key West know this history?

-Not nearly enough of them know about it.

There's just so much more to the island, and very few people realize that at first, but after they do find out about it, that's, I believe, what really causes them to want to come back... -Exactly.

-...is those layers of history here.

-One of my favorite things to do here in Key West is just to walk the neighborhoods.

And I think it's just so overlooked when people think of Key West.

-I couldn't agree more.

I feel like we're known so well as this fun drinking town, but when you get into the gorgeous architecture, the literary history, it's like peeling back layers of the onion.

-Who started the whole, this is where authors come and poets come to relax and maybe make more wonderful literary history?

-I think we can probably give the most credit to Ernest Hemingway, who came down in 1928 where he started writing "A Farewell to Arms" which became one of his most famous novels, and a lot of the writers after that have that sense of, greatness can be made here.

It's tranquil and beautiful.

-Mm-hmm.

This neighborhood especially is beautiful, and you've brought me here because of one particular home and author.

-Indeed, Tennessee Williams lived in this very house.

He came down to Key West in the early 1940s when he was just a young travel writer and had written his first play, "Battle of Angels," and he loved it so much, he came back.

He finished "A Streetcar Named Desire" here, and he purchased this house in 1950.

-He finished "A Streetcar Named Desire" here?

-He did, in Key West, in the La Concha Hotel.

-Wow.

That's a tin roof, if I'm not mistaken... -It is indeed.

-...which is kind of based on another one of his own awesome plays.

-"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," and "The Rose Tattoo" was filmed just next door, so there's a major Williams legacy down here.

-So these were the authors in the past.

Does Key West still have a legacy when it comes to current authors, more modern authors?

-It truly does.

Judy Blume lives down here with her husband, George Cooper.

-Wait, Judy Blume lives here?

-The Judy Blume.

-Like, "Are You There God?

It's Me, Margaret" lives here?

-The very same.

-Oh, my gosh.

I used to hide all of her books under my bed... -A lot of us did.

-...like "Wifey" and all of those.

-"Tiger Eyes," yeah.

-Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

She lives here?

And she has a bookstore.

-She does, a lovely one, and she and her husband run it.

She handpicks books, and it's amazing to walk in and see Judy Blume selling a book to a 13-year-old girl.

-And you're like, "I was that girl."

-Right.

-"I was that girl."

♪♪ Stick around Key West long enough, and you're bound to see the permanent smile belonging to local musician Howard Livingston.

-♪ I been around this world a few too many times ♪ ♪ There's one place I never want to leave ♪ -Did you ever think you were going to have this life back in your old life?

-I didn't.

I used to wear a suit and tie, lived in Chicago, and worked with a company that made diesel-engine parts, traveled all over the world.

-Mm-hmm.

-I rented a sailboat in the Keys for a week.

As soon as I got here, I felt like it was home.

-Hm.

-I'd never been here, and it felt like every person I met, I'd known forever.

♪ I got a smile on my face that you can't erase ♪ ♪ Feeling divine ♪ -This spot that we are at right now is just stunning.

This is Fort Zachary Taylor Park.

-Yes.

-I have been here so many times, and one thing I hear again and again is that there are no beaches on Key West, and yet right behind me is one of the most beautiful beaches where only the locals go, and now I realize, I have been lied to for a good 20 years about beaches on Key West.

Are you guys keeping this beach from us?

-We are.

I hate to say it, but, yeah.

This is really a local spot, and most folks don't even know about it.

-No, this is perfect.

♪ I'm living on Key West time ♪ -It's interesting.

You yourself are a Key West song in terms of your life and what you did and what you left behind.

You just could describe what you did, and that would be the perfect song to any night here in Key West.

-There's a kindred spirit here because everybody that's here wants to be here.

-Mm-hmm.

-They're not stuck here.

They worked really hard to get here and to stay here, so everybody loves this.

Everybody loves the Sun.

They love the ocean.

They love the island life, if you will, and that's what makes this place so special.

The people are incredible.

♪ Key West time ♪ -[ Clapping ] -Thank you!

[ Heart monitor beeping ] -For any traveler, going to the emergency room during a trip is a nightmare, and yet in Marathon, an hour's drive from Key West, there's one hospital where over 80,000 visitors a year eagerly pass through its doors.

-I'm Bette Zirkelbach, and I am a cheerleader for marine turtles here in the heart of the Florida Keys at the Turtle Hospital.

We've been rescuing and rehabilitating sea turtles at the Turtle Hospital for over 30 years.

The Turtle Hospital was the first licensed veterinary hospital in the world for sea turtles.

-So is this intensive care right now?

-Pretty much.

So in a human hospital, the patients have their own bed, and at the Turtle Hospital, the really sick turtles get their own hospital tank.

-They have their own little pool to swim around in.

-And this is Creek.

It looks like he's getting ready to hide away.

-Okay.

What type of turtle is Creek?

-Creek is a subadult green sea turtle.

-Green sea turtle.

Are they pretty common?

-They are common in the Florida Keys.

We see a lot of green sea turtles and a lot of loggerhead sea turtles.

-Why is he here?

-He's here because he has a severe case of pneumonia.

We didn't think that Creek had any chance of making it.

-So if I'm a rescuer, because you really rely on the open -- the boaters community to bring these turtles to you.

-Yeah, that's our eyes on the water.

-How do you tell if a turtle has pneumonia in the water?

-You can't tell that, but you can tell he's sick.

Just like when we get sick, we have outward signs.

Infections produce a gas which makes them float, so a floating sea turtle is not a healthy sea turtle.

-Oh, I didn't realize that.

So how many different sea turtles are off these waters in the Keys?

-We see five of the seven species of sea turtles... -Oh, wow.

-...in and around the Florida Keys.

-Mm-hmm.

-Hello, there, handsome.

Look at you.

-[ Laughs ] -What do you think?

-Oh, my goodness.

-Alright!

-Oh!

How many turtles can you accept?

-It's pretty limitless.

We've had over 200 turtles at a time here.

-That is incredible.

-Is that crazy?

-I mean, you don't mess around as a turtle hospital.

You have an operating room.

-We do.

We have an O.R.

We have an E.R., an emergency room.

We have a full staff of almost 20.

We have two veterinarians that are top in their class.

We also work with universities doing real-time research to help, really, sea turtles all over the globe.

-Do you release at the same beach every time?

-We don't.

We try to return them as close to where they were found as possible.

-And I'm going to be a part of one of those releases today, right?

-Yes, yes, with the green sea turtle.

-So who are we releasing back into the water today?

-Sky Woman.

-Sky Woman.

Alrighty.

-Here we go, Sky Woman, big day for you!

Sky Woman was found wrapped in fishing line so tightly that it cut through her trachea.

She's now being released, and I'll be accompanying her on her trip home.

-Let's go to the beach.

-I don't make a very good turtle EMT.

No, no, no, no, no.

-[ Chuckles ] -Keeping us company is Richie Moretti, whose career path to this moment has been appropriately slow and steady.

You are a former car salesman from New Jersey.

You are the owner and founder of The Turtle Hospital which is in a former hotel that you bought to be a hotel but then slowly turned it into a turtle hospital, and now you are an expert in sea turtles and rehabilitating them and saving them and putting them back in the water.

-Those turtles will be around.

They've been around 200 million years.

-Mm-hmm.

-So what we're doing is trying to help them get through these little bumps in the road like these tumors and, you know, getting hit with boats and tangled up with fishing line.

-And how many turtles have you saved?

-I'd say we're going on 3,000.

-Good job.

-We love our work.

-Alright, we want to thank everyone for being here, and this is Sky Woman.

Sky Woman is probably about 8 years old, and that's a guesstimate based on her size, meaning she's a juvenile.

She's like a kid.

-Wow.

-So what is something we can do to help not only sea turtles but all of marine life?

-Reduce trash.

-Reduce trash.

That's a biggie, right?

Things like not only fishing line, but all kinds of other trash that are in our oceans.

Alright, you think Sky Woman's ready to get back in the water?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, I think so, too.

-Alright, Sky Woman.

-You've got quite a send-off.

-[ Chuckles ] -I know.

What a great turnout.

-Got quite a cheering section.

-Thank you, guys.

Just lift her, and I'll pull this out.

-Okay.

-Ready?

One, two, three.

And we're going to go forward with her.

You're doing great.

Alright.

We're going to set her down and let her go.

She'll go.

There she goes.

-I'm going to cry.

-She's figured it out.

-Oh, my God!

-Pretty neat, huh?

-Yeah, good job.

-It never gets old, does it?

-Never gets old.

♪♪ -Lionfish like to live on structure, so any coral, any rock, any ledge, maybe even a shipwreck.

-It's a beautiful fish.

-It is.

It's a gorgeous fish.

-But what it does to marine life here in Florida is not beautiful at all.

-It's not.

I'm Rachel Bowman, and I commercially harvest lionfish in the Florida Keys.

This is what we got today.

-Oh, my gosh!

That's just today?

-That's what we've got.

This is just today.

This is in two dives.

-Holy mackerel!

-We got ourselves some nice lionfish here.

-Whoa!

-Good-size guys.

-How are these so destructive to the waters here?

-So lionfish don't have any native predators, so nothing eats them here, and then also our local native juvenile fish don't recognize lionfish as a predator.

-So no one eats them, but they eat the fish here.

-Absolutely, just mowing fish, crustacean, lobster, stone crab.

They're not very picky.

-How do you catch a lionfish?

-So you swim on down, and they don't swim away from divers.

They're absolutely fearless of us.

-So they don't have any predators, right?

So they're like, "Well, what are you going to do to me?"

And that's when you get them.

-They don't know about me yet.

-[ Laughs ] -So I swim down there.

I used what's called a pole spear.

It's got a three-prong tip on it that's pretty sharp, and it goes in your hand just like this.

Stretch that band out, and you're going to point it at that fish and just let it go.

-How far away from the fish do you have to be to get a good shot?

-A foot.

-That's it?

-You don't have to get -- Yeah, no.

Lionfish are actually really terrible swimmers.

-They got twenty of those things.

-Exactly.

-Gets in the way.

-All those frills and accoutrements don't make them very fast.

We carry a containment device.

It's called a zookeeper.

It's got a funnel on the end of it.

So once I've got a fish on the end of this spear, it just goes right in there.

-Mm-hmm.

-The funnel grabs the fish, and I can pull the spear right out, and I'm good to go.

We are here in the Florida Keys.

We are located inside of a national marine sanctuary.

-Mm-hmm.

-There's over, I think, it's 3,000 square nautical miles that the sanctuary encompasses.

The good news is, is that local divers, dive shops especially, have really taken up the fight against them.

-And the best part of this whole story is that they're good eating.

[ Sizzling ] Rachel has taken me to Sparky's Landing in Marathon, a wonderfully breezy open-air restaurant where they'll take whatever you caught and cook it in their wood-fired oven.

Alright, so this is my first taste of lionfish.

Oh, wow.

-It's good?

-It's fantastic.

-You like it?

-It's light.

It's a very mild flavor.

It's kind of like what we all want in fish.

-And, you know, when you order something like lionfish off of a menu, you're also not ordering snapper or grouper or mahi-mahi or any other species that the lionfish have kind of, you know, decimated their population a little bit.

There's absolutely nothing better in the whole world than having a plate in front of you, and what's on it is something that you have hunted or you have harvested.

There's nothing that will ever taste that good, and I like to think that maybe in my little ridiculous cartoon head that maybe they're looking at what I'm doing, and they're like, "Get them, Rachel."

-"Get them, Rachel."

The other guy's going to be in a taco.

-That's right, wrapped in a flour tortilla.

-Yep.

-The Florida Keys has a unique yet fragile marine ecosystem.

It is truly paradise.

It's the only reef in the United States.

It's a fabulous place to visit and an even better place to live.

-And for those of us that live here, we really have a responsibility to do our part to take care of what we have so that future generations get to enjoy it just as much as we do.

-Whether you've been here once or 100 times, there's a whole cultural side of the place that a lot of people don't get to see, and that's why I love showing people around the island, so that they can really experience an authentic and local Key West.

-We need to know that places like the Florida Keys exist, where the sun always shines, the music is smooth, and there's not a care in the world, but these beautiful coral islands are far more fragile than we think, and while it's perfectly okay to not expect more than an amazing holiday, when you do, you'll be rewarded.

When we listen to those who aren't on vacation, when we explore the side streets with someone who was raised here, when we listen to how we can help those who have been here for millions of years, that's when we share our love of travel.

I'm going to cry.

That's so wonderful.

And that's why the Florida Keys is a long stretch of places to love.

-For more information about this and other episodes, destination guides, or links to follow me on social media, log on to placestolove.com.

Samantha Brown's "Places to Love" was made possible by... -We believe watching the world go by isn't enough.

That's why we climb... ♪♪ ...pedal... and journey beyond the beaten path, on storied rivers, with a goal of making sure that every mile traveled turns into another memory.

You can find out more at amawaterways.com.

-To travel is to live, and at AAA, we've been passionate about travel for over 100 years.

That's why we created AAA Vacations, member travel experiences around the world.

Learn more at AAA.com/LiveTV.

-All the untamed beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains experienced on a journey by rail.

Rocky Mountaineer, proud sponsor of "Places to Love."

-♪ I'm living on Key West time ♪ -[ Chuckles ] -♪ I'm living on Key West time ♪ Alright, big ending, everybody.

-Okay.

-♪ I'm living on ♪ -♪ Key West time ♪ I love it.

-[ Chuckles ] Me, too.

I'm moving down here.

♪♪