US 1: Columbia, SC to Washington, DC

We're continuing with our US 1 series this week featuring the drive from Columbia, SC to Washington, DC, with a few stops along the way.

Three Days in Key West

Key West is home to the Southernmost Point in the Continental United States, key lime pie, beautiful sunsets, the End of US 1, and Hemingway's 6-toed cats.  We spent three days there after arriving by way of US 1 and the Overseas Highway, and today we're sharing our recommendations for how visitors to Key West can spend their time.

US 1: The Road That Started it All

To sum up US Highway 1 in a single, manageable blog post would be a major challenge - both for me to write and for you to read.   The highway originates at the Canadian border in Fort Kent, Maine and ends 2,593 miles later in Key West, Florida!  This first US 1 post will focus on the southern portion from the State House in downtown Columbia, SC to the Southernmost Point in Key West, FL - only about a third of the highway!

Our US 1 story takes place over several years, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2016.  After our wedding in 2008, we moved into an apartment on US 1 in Lexington, South Carolina.  We traveled on it daily to and from work and errands and at some point we learned that if we just drove past our apartment and kept going, we'd get all the way to Canada or Key West, depending on which direction we headed.

In August 2009, we set out on our first vacation together.  The first of our many back roads road trips began on a Friday afternoon with 9 days of open road ahead of us.  We began in downtown Columbia in front of the South Carolina State House and drove South with the goal of reaching Key West, taking US 1 the whole way.