"Home away from home" Top 5 Page for this destination Marathon by marie_joy

My father spent his retirement winters in marathon. He first purchased a condo and soon after sold that and bought a home behind the airport. My first visit there was when I was about 22. My dad had bought a convertible sports car in miami for my mom as a gift but didn't want to drive it back up to detroit. So he flew me and a girlfriend down to drive it back for him. He met us at the miami airport with the car, gave us some maps and tips then sent us on our way to the house in marathon while he got on a plane back to detroit. We stayed about 6 days before making the longest drive of our lives back to Detroit. We made friends with a local guy our first night there and spent much of the days following hanging out with him and his buddies. He still lives there and we still stop by to say hi to him each time we visit. Marathon is not ritzy - none of the keys are. Marathon does not have Duval street either and I think of it primarily as a sportsman's town. But it does have it's beautiful 7 mile bridge. Nothing feels better than driving those bridges on your way down from the miami or ft lauderdale airport on a perfect day after being in Detroit the rest of the year. Marathon has more than a few tiki bars, spots for delicious food and stores/shops. It also has fishing, snorkling, diving, boating, jet/water skiing, parasailing... water sports galore. And it has sun and a whole lot of... nothing. You can just sit in the sun and do nothing, isn't that pretty good in itself? The Sombrero Beach has been fixed up, a lot of other visitors I know don't make the drive to Bahia Honda anymore and just stick with Sombrero since. Some parts of Marathon are not beautiful, some of the housing is not so nice but take a drive around Key Colony and you can enjoy viewing some multi million dollar, gorgeous homes. I have come across some posts that are not very complimentary of Marathon and it bothers me like when people bash detroit. If you're headed to the keys for night-life and crazy bars to party party party then I would go straight to key west. But if you want to relax and take a load off, get in or on the water a bit, schedule free, then Marathon should not be looked over.