Private Jet from Miami to Pigeon Key

The village is what most parties fly down for. Eleven buildings from the railroad years still stand on the five acres, restored and in use again as classrooms, bunk rooms and a museum, and they are why the island has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1990. The museum is in the old Assistant Bridge Tender's house, with the photographs and objects left from the camp. Guided tours run every day, and the island is small enough that an unhurried hour takes in all of it. A foundation looks after the buildings, which is why the place feels kept rather than developed. Tell us how many are coming with the date and the landing is timed to meet a tour instead of missing one. The ground transport from the apron to the ferry is priced beside the aircraft.

The bridge is the other half of the visit. Its 2.2 mile stretch from Marathon out to the island reopened in January 2022 after a restoration of about 44 million dollars, and it now belongs to walkers, runners, cyclists and anglers rather than trains. From the island it runs away in both directions just above the water, with the modern bridge alongside, and that is the picture everybody leaves with. On foot from the Marathon end it is two miles each way, so a party that walks in has spent an hour before the tour begins. Arriving by jet and ferry turns that around. The walk becomes a choice you make for the view, often one way with the visitor train for the other, rather than the price of getting there.

The island was chosen, not stumbled on. Engineers picked these five acres as the construction camp for the Seven Mile Bridge on Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad, and the bridge went up between 1908 and 1912. At the height of the work more than 400 people lived here, in dormitories with a mess hall, a bakery and a commissary. What survives is that village, so it reads as a place where people worked rather than as a resort. After the railroad it housed the road and toll bridge district, and from 1968 it served for two decades as a marine research station. Every one of those layers is still there, and the tour walks through them in order.

The water is the second reason to come. There is a small beach and a dock, and the shallows around them are clear enough to snorkel straight from the island rather than from a boat. That is what lets a short visit hold both halves: nobody has to be taken out and brought back. Masks on in the first hour and the tour still fits into the same afternoon. If the day belongs more to the water than to the village, a beach picnic goes to the sand, and water toys or a dock pickup are arranged with the flight rather than found on the day.

The foundation that keeps the island also runs it as a marine science centre, with hands-on programmes, exhibits and residential camps for school children who stay several nights. For a family that changes what the day is. The rooms that once housed bridge crews are classrooms now, so the science and the history share the same buildings instead of being two separate stops. Families are worth flagging when you send the date. Children count as passengers and in the payload, and the hours ashore are easier to fit around a programme than around a timetable.

The town side of the visit is Marathon on Vaca Key, and for a jet it is also the arrival: the field is there, the marinas are there and the ferry to the island leaves from there. It has its own page and its own flight. The guide is on the Marathon destination page, the crossing on its own is Miami to Marathon by private jet, and a Marathon getaway puts the town and the island into one booking. Guests who want a table after the museum book a fly and dine day, since the island closes before dinner and Marathon does not. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

Past the bridge the chain opens into Bahia Honda and Big Pine Key, the beaches and the backcountry rather than the history. Bahia Honda State Park sits at mile marker 37, eight miles west of the island, with the broken span of Flagler's old bridge beside its beach. Big Pine Key carries the National Key Deer Refuge, and further on, Little Palm Island sits off Little Torch Key, reached only by boat. All three are a short drive from the same apron in Marathon. Each is flown on its own as well: Miami to Big Pine Key by private jet and Miami to Little Palm Island by private jet, with the Big Pine Key destination page setting out the refuge.

A private jet charter from Miami to Pigeon Key also works as one leg rather than the whole day. The aircraft waits at Marathon, the middle of the chain, so Key West, the Dry Tortugas and Islamorada are the same airframe on the same day. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider scenic flight down the chain, and the rest is set out across the Florida Keys jet routes. An overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. Freight moves the same way on island logistics. The Pigeon Key destination page sets out the island itself, and the Pigeon Key getaway is the same hours put together as one booking. Anything else goes to custom requests.