- 6 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Travel is in my blood.
00:02Let's go.
00:03This is the best.
00:04For years I worked as a tour rep,
00:06following in the footsteps of my dear lovely mob,
00:09a hard-working, no-nonsense travel agent.
00:12Thanks to our money-saving tips,
00:14we managed to budget our way to a place that totally captured our hearts.
00:18Look at this! Look at this!
00:20Florida.
00:21I love it!
00:24I was born for Little Havana.
00:26And now the Sunshine State is a big draw for me.
00:29Sorry, I'm still on your foot.
00:31And my son, Aidan.
00:33You see him, mate?
00:35Yeah.
00:37But with holiday prices rising...
00:39Oh, my goodness. I'm in heaven.
00:41Can you do Florida...
00:43Without breaking the bank?
00:45$4.99 for these.
00:47Oh, yes, Aidan!
00:49Help you, Mum. Otherwise, just get out.
00:53It's the best day of my life.
00:59Right, after this red car, son.
01:01After this red car, I'm all over this.
01:03I'm all over...
01:05Move your head.
01:07It's quite literally the end of the road for me and Aidan,
01:09on our budget-savvy Florida foray.
01:11The best road trip you've ever been on, isn't it?
01:13To be honest.
01:14Taking the journey.
01:15Oh, that's nice.
01:16Not the destination.
01:17We've enjoyed it, haven't we?
01:18We really have.
01:19US Route 1 has taken us as far south as it possibly can for one last adventure.
01:23We're heading to Key West, babes, one of the most popular spots in the Sunshine State.
01:45state we've made it one tip of Florida yeah they say people when they come here they can be anything
01:54they want and they're one of the most happiest people in the whole of Florida when they come
01:59here really yeah that's a pretty big reputation to hold yeah it's true apparently when they come
02:03here they never want to leave they want to stay I want to find out why let's find out what makes
02:08I'm so happy famed for its year-round raise lively nightlife and friendly chickens that free range
02:16around the place I'm told this tropical paradise can be pretty pricey but fear not us Hammonds are
02:26going to unlock some thrifty ways to do Key West without blowing a hole the size of Cuba in our
02:32bank account which is just over there incidentally my first thrifty tip dump the hire car they cost a
02:42fortune don't they and with the island being so Bijou just four miles long you're much better
02:48finding alternative ways to get around oh there yes let's get trolley bubs hello everybody we've
03:00come on board to meet a man in the know Clinton who's going to give us a little insider knowledge
03:06to get our Key West party started Clinton I'm loving this bus ride already what is it about
03:12Key West that is so incredible the weather the smell of the ocean you're seeing the ocean there's
03:17like a really great connectivity to it it's such a terrific community as well very welcoming you kind
03:23of put all of those pieces together and I can understand why people always want to come back I don't
03:28ever really want to leave so I get it Key West is famous for a giant native sea snail called a conch
03:37well I say conch but Key Westerners they say conch if you're born and bred here you can call yourself
03:45a conch too and if you've lived here for seven years or more you're a freshwater conch so this island is
03:53conquers and Clinton is a conch og because he's mastered the art of putting the honk into the
04:00conch of course the snail grows the shell we eat the snail and conch fritters conch chowder conch salad
04:07but what are you gonna do with the shell afterwards no we make horns out of them and so yeah so this is
04:13actually a horn and if you ever played any kind of brass instrument in any band you can already play a conch
04:22you ready yeah I'm ready all right watch your ears just a little
04:25go on
04:29fuck as shit yeah take a breath I've been doing it a very long time we all learn as little kids how to
04:35play the conch horn everything here is very conch centric you're telling me and now someone else wants to get
04:43in on the conch craze can I have a go I want to have a little go I'll have music absolutely that one is for you this one's for me
04:56he's got it down first time right absolutely I can see Aiden's come out of his shell
05:08so that is my gift to y'all you can take that home
05:11Clinton's suddenly going down in my estimation but he could turn it around with some top local tips
05:31so we're here all day what would you recommend we do everyone that comes here you want to get on the
05:36water go to some of the great restaurants try key lime pie oh yeah from sun up to sundown there is
05:44something for everybody i love it hold up did he just say pie oh my sounds like we've got a fun day
05:53ahead of us but first i'm gonna ride this trolley for all it's worth i'm well on board with this babes
06:00it's like a little toy town isn't it it's so cute key west here we go
06:08it's 50 bucks for one day's unlimited travel
06:12but that also gets you two guided walking tours and entry to a local museum and to top it off they
06:19give you a book of coupons for local restaurants oh i love a coupon who doesn't plus up here we can
06:26float above the streets safe in the knowledge that our parking isn't about to run out win-win
06:34yeah we all will be winning today pretty good yeah and can we just hear it for our tour guide
06:40he's so friendly takes me back to my days as a holiday rep picking up passengers from the airport
06:47i love getting on that mic first stop a key west landmark the furthest south you can possibly get
06:56in the whole of the continental us of a so the southernmost point buoy just here to your right
07:02hand side oh 90 miles to cuba number one yeah just 90 miles across the florida straits
07:09and uh as you can see it's a very popular location to have your picture taken so it's a queue
07:14yeah there's a queue almost every day one of the most sought after photos uh on the island so that's
07:19a great great great fire we brits are drawn to a queue like moths to a flame thank you thank you
07:30and i'm not going to miss an opportunity for a selfie that would be madness we can't go without
07:36getting our selfie can we bab no we can't as well we're here now in truth this isn't even the southernmost
07:42point in the us of a that's actually around the corner on an off-limits naval base but let's not
07:49let that get in the way of a good photo opportunity yeah she's really going for a pose i'll show everyone
07:54my music no please don't i'll be so embarrassed oh no don't we're gonna lock horns if this carries on
08:02it's so embarrassing right let's show them how it's done 90 miles from cuba grafias thank you got it
08:22surprising fact key west is actually closer to havana than miami before the highway was built
08:28and long before the cuban revolution it was easier for locals to sail south to havana then travel north
08:36to miami lovely amazing sorted let's go you are so funny
08:50with key west being an island one of the best ways to enjoy is to get out onto the crystal clear waters
08:58which if you're not careful can cost a fortune boat trips and water sports are past times you pay
09:05a premium for here especially if you're not part of a group where you can split the cost
09:12you could go solo and snorkel at fort zachary park
09:18but there are ways to get out on the water where you don't have to push the boat out
09:22well you do obviously but not financially at least good morning i'm captain brian how are you
09:28nice you're a hugger you are yes this boat trip is not costing us a dime because me and aiden are
09:36volunteering for the army the marine army nice boat we're talking trash babes offering our services to
09:45help clean the ocean do you need any help let's go the conch republic marine army is a team of volunteers
09:57who are taking action to clean up the florida keys waters we call it making friends in trashy places
10:03anyone can join in as long as you're willing to get a little bit wet
10:09i've got it i've got it guys i've got it nice
10:15you can take that home and hang it up in your office there you go
10:18i got the trash
10:22it might not look like there's too much phloxam and jetsam on the surface here
10:26i'll get it right yeah right hand side yeah all right
10:33yeah two but these guys are removing rubbish on an industrial level relying solely on local
10:41goodwill to make it happen we're gonna be selling pool noodles at the end of the day five dollars to
10:46raise money every month the volunteers pull out four truck loads of junk they're on track for 20 tons this
10:55year alone that wraps up around a propeller that'd be a bad day much of it down to the ever more frequent
11:04storms battering the florida keys oh it's a big ball look at that there's still more brian i'm actually
11:13quite shocked at how much rubbish is coming out of this ocean look at all this rope yeah this is called
11:19trap line which is rope that attaches the buoy to the lobster or crab trap and storms like hurricanes
11:27they all get torn to shreds and distributed and uh we have about a million of these pots in the
11:32florida keys in the water and about 15 of them get cut off and no one has ever cleaned up the florida
11:37keys like what we're trying to do it's unbelievable how did this all start off with you brian uh it was
11:43hurricane arma in 2017 came through in september and uh it destroyed our home and you needed a
11:49way to vent and an easy way to vent was to find a couple of sofas that were in the water and i said
11:55i'm just gonna go get one of those out so i made a facebook post and 25 people showed up to help me
12:00go get that sofa so i made another post saying let's do it again and uh four weeks later i had 125 people
12:05show up just looking for something different to do than live in misery and then since then we've pulled out
12:10250 tons of trash 94 refrigerators which is crazy uh numerous cuban chugs one kilo of cocaine um
12:21and a couple of messages in a bottle so we've done 54 miles of the shoreline very clean there's 900
12:26more to go so we're not even at 10 percent wow so this is a mega problem everyone agrees that cleaning
12:31up our environment here in the keys is the number one priority our water quality is what we live on no
12:36one visits here for the cheap rent and the fresh fruits and vegetables as i say it's for the
12:40weather and for the water and if we don't have that you know why come has this changed your life
12:45ryan amazingly there's nothing better honestly this is this is a much better way of spending the day
12:49than the normal touristy things in my opinion yeah and i get the benefit because i meet uh all kinds
12:54of people like you and here we are you and i are making friends for life yes definitely i'm family now
12:59bab i'm in this marine army forever and i'm not alone numbers have now swelled to a massive 5 000
13:08volunteers all willing to get into deep water to do their bit for the local environment you did a good
13:16job the great thing about this as well as having no impact on my wallet is that the whole family can
13:25get involved there we go a piece of top there's one of our little creatures here saying thank you for
13:34picking up this habitat that's one of our local residents here he wanted to say thank you for
13:39picking up all this trash and trash out of the water you can't play that one aid that is that is
13:45safely back in his environment put him back in his home thank you very much all cleaned up
13:49as well as the feel-good factor and the fact that it's free one of the other perks is you get
13:56lunch thrown in too as a reward for your efforts we're gonna go right in here to this little uh
14:03little cove and uh look over there there's a big white looks like a sail i can see it and it looks
14:08pretty big and it doesn't belong there so let's go get it out let's go do it time to get stuck in
14:14you're gonna sink down just a little bit when you get there but that's not terrible it's not
14:19let's help mama yeah between i think i'm gonna get wet it is yeah just go slow let's go really slow
14:30quite literally oh i've gone really low yeah same my body's done that's right come on pull it just move
14:37move it up gently i was the same i was the same i got some trash oh there's loads of bugs on it
14:46yeah the thing is once you start you can't stop nice any other treasure there's a lot of rug left
14:54in here any more plastic in there lovely elson how you doing look at this one oh yeah
15:01i'm not gonna lie it's not exactly glamorous but getting down and dirty is kind of liberating
15:10do you know what i'm actually really enjoying this it also gives you more of appreciation about
15:16when people throw rubbish away you know what it could end up in this beautiful beautiful spot and we
15:24don't want that no no no these guys are working so hard all these volunteers are working so hard
15:32they're not the only ones hey allison look at aiden he's uh he's addicted now to getting trash
15:39it's bizarre the things we found nice job buddy that's getting it done good work guys
15:46well done thank you well done darling thank you you've just done so well i know there was
15:53there was loads there was so much trash it was just yeah it's mad isn't it i can't believe it gets
15:58caught up here i mean we found what we found random i found a lemon squeezer did you so random
16:03let me take that yes yeah and a gas card yeah really random stuff but it was good fun i enjoyed it
16:09and you're giving something back he's not so good well done babes i'm really proud of you it's a
16:15lovely feeling actually cleaning up i was gonna say how do you feel in here really good in my heart
16:19actually yeah it's a lovely thing to do you visited the keys and you gave back come back and see us
16:23again thanks for coming thank you sure you can splash the cash and experience more luxury on the water
16:32but this is so much more satisfying and between us me and aid collected over 14 pounds of trash
16:39so many bottles pool noodles and that lemon squeezer and this sense of island community spirit is really
16:48starting to come across
16:55there's a saying the locals use on this island that pretty much sums them up we're all here because
17:01we're not all there key west has always been a place where larger than life characters can feel right
17:07at home over the years the island's all-embracing lifestyle has inspired some colorful eccentrics
17:14to put down roots from tennessee williams to jimmy buffett who wrote margaritaville but perhaps its
17:22most famous resident was america's literary legend the noble prize winning heavy drinking deep sea fishing
17:31bar brawling genius ernest hemingway or just papa to his fans for just eighteen dollars you can visit the
17:40house he called home now a museum with guided tours included
17:47legend has it hemingway loved to frequent the bars along duval street especially this one so how does key
17:55west celebrate its connection to such greatness well in typical key west style by gathering every
18:02hemingway look-alike on the planet sloppy joe's has been in this location for 87 years and for 43 of those
18:12years we've hosted the hemingway look-alike contest where guys show up from around the world to say i want
18:19to be the next couple that's a hell of a lot of facial hair local resident tim stockwell is one of
18:26key west keenest competitors i was sitting at this very bar and somebody came up and said are you here
18:32for the contest and i didn't know anything about the contest i said what contest so they brought down
18:37the application for me great then i filled it out and made it to the finals my first year so i've been
18:44to the finals all five years i've been to the contest and i've made it in the top five twice so you never
18:50know next year could be a good year the competition is stiff mind you with look-alikes identified all
18:57over from new zealand to norway what you have is a lot of eccentric guys showing up for this right and
19:03they want to show their flair so we come with guys that have bullhorns through their shirts with blood all
19:08over it we have people come in all kinds of safari outfits one year we had a guy show up in a
19:14diaper you never know what you're going to see show up on that stage for hemiway days and as well
19:20as entertaining the locals this zany contest raises over 100 000 each year towards scholarships for
19:28students in the florida keys i think that papa would have loved the fact that we're giving away
19:34a lot of money to keep people here in his beloved key west in the florida keys but what would the great
19:39man have made of this island today i think what he would particularly like about key west now is
19:46it has kept its eccentricity the tolerance for being eccentric and outrageous or being who you want to be
19:54is it thrives here almost as famous as hemingway is another key west classic something else we've been
20:03told not to miss while we're here as if i'm so excited and i'm so glad that clinton said that we've
20:12got to try key lime pie that's why i brought you here what pepe's award-winning key lime pie you are
20:19well if it's award-winning it's good for me come on you can't come to key west and not try key lime pie
20:28it would be like going to brum and not having a bowl tea or cornwall without devouring a pasty
20:35the chicken behind you even the local chickens want to get in on the action
20:41if you wanted to save a few dollars you could get them as takeout and eat them on the beach or in the
20:46park but these guys have been making key lime pie for almost 100 years and the key lime king is danny
20:57hello good people how are y'all doing hi we're good how are you hello danny it's wonderful to see
21:02you dear oh lovely to see you how are you like a new pair of pants ready to rip okay i heard there's
21:10no calories in your key line there's absolutely no other key lime pie no i'm not gonna say that
21:17there's a lot of calories we make we make we make it fresh so it's so can we get two of them that's
21:22i saw i brought my mom here i wanted us to try the key lime pie well guess what friend i think we
21:27can make this happen okay you're gonna join us i actually will join you yeah come on let's do we
21:34just need one and then three spoons if you'd like to i would love to share a key lime pie with you
21:39if you want something i don't know you're you're a young strappling man i'll have the whole thing
21:44guess what you're getting the whole thing okay amazing okay thank you darling thank you thank you
21:50the creamy biscuity delight is said to have started here in key west back in the late 1800s
21:58made with the tiny yellowish key limes grown here it was a no-bait treat that early settlers whipped up
22:05with whatever they had on hand fishermen even took the pies out to sea for a sweet pick me up yep
22:12sometimes the oldies really are the goodies inform your cardiologist thank you welcome to key lime pie
22:20i think i'm gonna want this recipe we make it from the ground up so literally we do the graham
22:25cracker crust key west key limes and condensed milk and all those things that are really heart healthy
22:32okay cheers everyone cheers cheers that's right oh wow oh my goodness i feel like i've just pied
22:41and went to heaven i've had this for breakfast before by the way yeah okay let me really think about
22:48oh my lord this is great oh really good wow these recipes go back to 1931
22:56wow okay this goes back that far before air conditioning really yes i'm actually regretting
23:04sharing this with you is the recipe a secret no i'll tell you but i'd have to kill you honestly that
23:13is delicious thank you very much sorry i can't speak right now i'll be honest with you it's not
23:20often i'm rendered speechless but i need to find my voice again because before we go i've just been
23:25given a tip-off about another quirky perk in this restaurant just found out that this telephone box
23:32it gives free international calls so i thought you know what i'm gonna call my sister but i've only
23:37got three minutes to do it in this was introduced for the locals i hope that's a number
23:43when it was the only phone working on the whole island during a hurricane
23:52it was the only way to keep in touch with family hello sandra it's allison hello hello darling
24:01how are you i'm all right i'm actually calling you from key west oh wow hemingway country yes
24:10i'm absolutely loving it have we taken lots of pictures babes i've done one better than that
24:15i've made a show i've made a show you know all you've got to do is watch florida unpacked you're
24:19gonna love it florida unpacked yeah babes don't you worry i'll send you all the deets oh my gosh
24:25well give me the heads up give me the heads up you're gonna love it so lovely to hear you oh miss
24:30you sis i'll miss you i'll see you when you get back i love you bye bye bye bye bye bye
24:35how cool is that oh i feel like i've got a little piece of home here in key west oh
24:47oh sandra she's a bit like key west my sister eccentric and welcoming
24:56as the light starts to fade there's one more site we need to see and it doesn't cost a dime
25:02mallory square is where the locals and tourists meet up to celebrate what people say is one of the
25:10best sunsets in america and if you're expecting serene and spiritual think again this is something
25:19else there's a carnival atmosphere every day we just need to get the low down on the sundown from local
25:29musician mike what on earth is happening here there's so many people it's like a big massive
25:36party every night seven days a week if that sun's going down people are here there's vendors there's
25:41performers playing music then the sunset's just a cherry on top of the ice cream all day we've been
25:46asking people why do they love key west so much why do you love it the people the people make it what it
25:52is people bring that energy that spirit to the town if you need help they got you the weather's great
25:57the food's amazing but the people are what make key west key west beautiful yeah that's lovely that is
26:04you know what i think mike's nailed it we came to key west wanted to know why this tiny island at the
26:12very bottom of florida draws so many to its shores and why they never seem to want to leave
26:19i'd i feel like we already know why people keep coming back to this place i mean look at that
26:24what a sunset i feel like that's one of the main reasons why they come back have you noticed how
26:29happy everybody is as well everyone's loving it everyone's happy taking photos and they're so proud
26:35to show off key west they want to talk about it they love their city i totally get it now you can see why
26:41people here have a blast there you go but don't take themselves too seriously and they definitely eat
26:52well are you still thinking about a key lime pie i am it was so nice really nice this conch crazy island
27:02has captured my heart key west has shown that sometimes the best things in life really are free
27:13and as the sun sets across the florida straits
27:19it's also setting on our florida adventure look at this look at this oh yes i did and what an adventure
27:28it's been gold dolphins we've kayaked this is actually so lovely aiden just having some quiet
27:37time with me and you we've danced we've parasailed this is one of the most wonderful things i've ever
27:44done in my life unbelievable we've done so much i never expected that it's been the best time a lot
27:52and i feel closer than ever to aiden i can't tell you how lovely you look and my dear mom i got a
27:59little bit emotional yeah she would have loved it hey oh aiden i can't believe we're at the end of
28:07our incredible adventure do you reckon this is the last adventure now that you're 19 that we're ever
28:12gonna have it can't be i've enjoyed it i really enjoyed it oh it's been lovely let's do it again
28:20sometime yeah that's but not this year
28:50you
Be the first to comment