The Crossing
Seaplane Miami to Islamorada by Private Charter
Islamorada is the closest piece of the Florida Keys that still feels like the Keys and a seaplane is the only way there that skips the road entirely. The village sits on Upper Matecumbe and the keys around it, about 65 statute miles from downtown Miami in a straight line and just over 56 nautical.
The flight runs about twenty minutes in the air. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, turns south and follows the reef line down over Key Largo and Plantation Key. You are low enough the whole way to see the difference between the shallow green of Florida Bay on one side and the deep water on the other. Then the floats settle on the bay side.
The same trip by car is a different day. US 1 is the only road in, it runs about 80 miles from Miami and it takes an hour and a half to two hours when nothing is wrong with it. On a winter weekend it is closer to three and the drive lands at the end of your day rather than at the start of it.
This is one of several seaplane routes out of Miami and the shortest one that ends in the Keys. The aircraft is a small plane on floats, eight seats and nine in some configurations, chartered whole from a seaplane base in Miami. The same flight leaves from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach as well, both a little further north of the Keys than Miami is.
Plan Your Islamorada Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane from Miami to Islamorada Actually Works
Islamorada is twenty minutes away and almost none of the day is yours to organise. What decides this day is geography instead. There is no airport in Islamorada at all, so every arrival that uses a runway ends with a car on US 1 and that car is most of the journey.
What follows is the sequence in order, from the water at the Miami end to the light that decides when you come home.
Plan Your Islamorada CharterDistance and Time
Sixty five miles down the reef line, about twenty minutes of it in the air
Downtown Miami to Upper Matecumbe Key is roughly 65 statute miles in a straight line, just over 56 nautical, almost all of it water. On floats that is about twenty minutes airborne, plus the taxi out and the water landing at the far end. Key Largo lies about halfway along that line, so the top of the chain is barely a quarter of an hour from the city.
The Drive You Are Not Doing
The same trip by road is 80 miles of US 1 and a season that decides how long it takes
There is one road into the Keys and everybody is on it. Miami to Islamorada is about 80 miles of it, an hour and a half to two hours on a good day and closer to three on a winter weekend. That is the part a seaplane removes and it is the reason most parties on this route are not flying for the view.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Islamorada together and comes home together
The aircraft stays in the Keys rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Water Landing
The floats land on the bay side, so there is no runway and no drive at the far end
Islamorada has no airport of its own. The nearest runway that takes a charter is at Marathon, another half hour down the highway, so a runway arrival buys a car ride either way. A seaplane sets down on the sheltered water on the Florida Bay side, where the marinas and the docks already are. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami is a dock rather than a terminal and the list is names and weights
There is no check in, no gate and no bag drop. What we need before the day is who is travelling and what is coming with them: a float aircraft is payload limited, so passengers, bags and fuel are run through one calculation for your flight. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance.
The Way Back
The way back carries daylight and nothing else
Water landings run only from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so nothing on floats comes home in the dark and the return leg carries a deadline from the moment the date is set. The window moves through the year, so the latest useful departure for your date comes back with the quote rather than as a rule of thumb.
A return that would arrive after dark lands on a lit runway instead of on water and the aircraft is amphibious, so that is a change of landing point rather than a cancelled day. How a moved departure is handled sits in the weather and delays policy.
Departure Points
Departure Points for a Seaplane from Miami to Islamorada
A seaplane needs no airport at the Miami end, so the departure point follows your morning rather than the aircraft. Two of these four put you on the water, two on a ramp.
Miami Seaplane Base
555 NE 15th St, Miami
The water departure, on Biscayne Bay just north of downtown. Boarding is from the dock, so nothing between the car and the aircraft looks like an airport. The shortest ground leg for Brickell, downtown and the beach and the usual choice when a yacht is the other half of the day.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city, with private terminal handling at both ends of the day.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami, in the south west of the county. When the aircraft for your date is already based at this field, the charter starts without a positioning leg. That matters most on a same day return, where an hour lost in Florida is an hour lost at the far end.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
A pickup rather than a base and the right one when the party is already landing at MIA and the onward leg should leave from the same airport. No aircraft is stationed here, so it is arranged per flight and confirmed with the operator before it is quoted.
How to Charter
How to Charter a Seaplane to Islamorada from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Islamorada Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, where you are coming from and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave. A seaplane lands on water and on runways. Your pickup can be a marina, a hotel dock or a beach, and an airport works just as well.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We check what is free on your date and send the seaplanes that fit. Seats, baggage and flight time for each one. Every aircraft costs a little differently, so we can find the best fit for you.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You pick the aircraft, and we set the pickup point and the landing site. Then everything around the flight. Catering on board, a car or a golf cart waiting when you land, ground transport to your hotel or back to the airport.
Flowers if the day is a special one. You approve it, you pay, and your boarding time, departure point and everything included come back to you.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Early
You will have no terminal and no queue. Just make sure you are there 30 minutes before. Then you take off, land right at your destination, and enjoy the day.
On the Island
Where a Miami to Islamorada Seaplane Puts You Down
Islamorada is a village of islands rather than one island: Plantation Key, Windley Key, Upper and Lower Matecumbe, strung along about twenty miles of the Overseas Highway between mile markers 90 and 70.
Florida Bay is behind it, the Atlantic and the reef in front and the water landing puts you between the two. What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between.
Plan Your Islamorada CharterThe Flats and the Blue Water
Most Asked For
Islamorada calls itself the sport fishing capital of the world and the geography is the reason, not the slogan. The shallow backcountry of Florida Bay lies behind the islands, the drop into blue water lies in front of them and both are minutes from the same dock.
The flats hold tarpon, bonefish and permit, so parties book flats fishing or a full fishing day by seaplane. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
Offshore the Gulf Stream runs ten to twenty miles out and brings sailfish, mahi mahi, wahoo and tuna close enough that a small boat can reach them, so an offshore morning and a backcountry afternoon fit inside one day here. Say which of the two you are after when you send the date: they are rarely the same boat.
Alligator Reef and the Lighthouse
Snorkel Depth
The ocean side is where the reef sits. Alligator Reef, with its iron lighthouse standing out of the water, is the piece of it everybody photographs and the one the snorkel boats run to first.
The coral is shallow enough that snorkellers and divers are looking at the same thing from different depths, which is what makes a half day in the water work with a mixed party. The boats leave from the same marinas the seaplane sets you down beside, so a morning on the reef and a long lunch ashore both fit inside one visit.
The Tarpon at the Docks
With Children Along
The calmest version of the water here is the one at the dock. Tarpon of a hundred pounds and more hang under the boards at Robbie's, bayside at mile marker 77 and a half, close enough to hand feed from the planks, which is the thing children remember about the Keys.
Theater of the Sea, the marine park on Windley Key, is the other half of that afternoon and both sit on the bay side, minutes from the water landing. Neither needs a boat, a booking window or a tide, so they are what a day falls back on when the wind is up.
The Bay Side Sandbars
Low Water Only
Behind the islands the bay dries into open sand at low water, warm and shin deep, with nothing on it and nothing around it. That is where a beach picnic goes. Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water rather than on the sand, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you at the marina.
Low water decides the hour rather than you, which is the one part of an Islamorada day set by the sea and not by the aircraft. It is worth naming when you send the date, because it moves the afternoon by hours rather than by minutes.
The Beaches and the Highway
A Short Walk
The Keys are not a beach destination in the way Florida is and Islamorada is the exception that proves it. Anne's Beach on Lower Matecumbe is a boardwalk of three hundred feet over the sand with water that stays knee deep a long way out and Founders Park on Plantation Key is the other one, with the pool, the marina and the shade.
Everything else is strung along the one highway rather than gathered in a town: the resorts, the fish houses on the docks and the bars are minutes apart by car and nothing is far. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day and ground transport is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival.
Indian Key and Lignumvitae Key
Boat Only
Two of the islands in the village have no road at all. Indian Key, a state historic site, carries the outline of a wrecking town that burned in 1840 and is now paths through the scrub with the foundations still readable.
Lignumvitae Key, on the bay side, holds one of the last stands of the tropical hardwood hammock that once covered the upper Keys, with a house from the 1910s in the middle of it. Both are reached by boat only, both are quiet in a way the highway never is and both are a short run from where the floats come down.
The Quarry, the Museum and the Monument
On Land
On land the village keeps three things worth an hour. Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park is an old quarry whose cut walls are a cross section of a reef that grew here about a hundred thousand years ago, so you walk inside coral rather than over it.
The History of Diving Museum, bayside at mile marker 83, runs from open bottom helmets to the beginnings of sport diving.
The Hurricane Monument on Upper Matecumbe, an art deco slab dedicated in 1937, marks the more than four hundred people killed by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, most of them veterans building the highway you drove in on. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Islamorada also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on down the chain to Marathon, Big Pine Key, Sugarloaf Key and Key West, or back north to Key Largo and Ocean Reef.
That is what turns one village into island hopping or a Key West escape. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. If a boat is meeting you, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier. That is a yacht transfer and it is the reason a good number of these flights happen at all.
The full island guide sits on the Islamorada destination page and the rest of the chain is on the Florida Keys destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Islamorada?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Seaplane to Islamorada Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane Miami to Islamorada: The Bay, the Reef Line and a Water Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the flight itself, the road it replaces, where the aircraft sets down and how far the same aircraft carries on down the Florida Keys.
Seaplane from Miami to Islamorada: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Miami to Islamorada seaplane
The crossing is not dead time between two airports. A seaplane runs low and slow, so the water under the wing is the first thing the day gives you. The village sits on Upper Matecumbe and the keys around it, about 65 statute miles from downtown Miami in a straight line and just over 56 nautical. The flight runs about twenty minutes in the air. A car at the Miami end, a meet and greet when you step off, catering on board and a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you: all of it is fixed before the day rather than found on the day. The backcountry flats, the reef and the sandbars are all within minutes of the water from there, so flats fishing and a beach picnic are the two things guests add most often. The party travels on one booking, not a row of seats. Every seat is a window seat on seaplanes in the fleet of this size, so nobody watches the crossing over someone's shoulder. Other seaplane routes from Miami fly the same way.
Seaplane to Islamorada from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Islamorada
Nobody hands you a timetable on a charter. The day is built around the hour you name. You name the hour you want to lift off, the hour you want to be standing on Islamorada and which water in the city suits your morning. The aircraft belongs to your party for the day, so all three are your decision rather than a departure somebody else set, and a change the week before is a message to us. If the drive is shorter the other way, the same day runs out of Fort Lauderdale. Half an hour before the lift-off is the whole of the check-in. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft, the bags go on in front of you, and the list for that flight carries your names and nobody else's. Nothing about the morning waits on a stranger. Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. And the crossing is a reason in itself. The windows are deep and the aircraft crosses low, so there is room for everybody to sit and watch the water change instead of taking turns at one of them.
Miami to Islamorada Seaplane: Nothing to File, Nothing to Carry
No customs and no check-in desk on a Islamorada charter
A seaplane from Miami to Islamorada stays inside Florida, so there is no border to clear and no paperwork anybody has to file. The flight never leaves the country, so there is no declaration, no port of entry and no passport check at either end. Your party needs photo identification and nothing more. Everything around the flight is settled from our side before your party arrives, from the slot at both ends to the handling on the ramp. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft and the bags go on in front of you. The same aircraft is there for the return, so nothing is checked in, claimed or checked in again on the way home. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance. A departure moved by weather runs under the weather and delays policy, and a name added or dropped before the flight is a message to us rather than a problem for you.
Seaplane Miami Islamorada: Milestone Days and Florida Weekends
A day trip, a long weekend or something to celebrate on Islamorada
A private seaplane from Miami to Islamorada is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. The flight is short enough that the occasion, not the travelling, is what the day is about. That is what a seaplane Miami Islamorada charter is for. On a winter weekend it is closer to three and the drive lands at the end of your day rather than at the start of it. Everything that is not on the list goes to custom requests and what is worth adding to a Keys day sits with the seaplane experiences. Some parties fly over for the day and are home the same evening. Others stay on and book the return for the day they want. Both are the same charter, and the whole group travels together on one booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. Everything is in place before you board in Miami.
Questions
Seaplane Miami to Islamorada: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Islamorada?
About twenty minutes in the air. Upper Matecumbe Key lies roughly 65 statute miles from downtown Miami in a straight line, just over 56 nautical, almost all of it water.
The exact block time depends on the aircraft and on which departure point you leave from and it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book. What sets the length of the day is not the flight. It is how long the aircraft waits for you in the Keys.
Can the seaplane come alongside a dock in Islamorada?
Yes, and on the bay side that is the usual arrival. The marinas and the docks are already there, which is why a water landing works here and a runway does not.
Send the coordinates with the enquiry and the pilots decide whether they can put down there. Everyone travelling still goes on the passenger list when you book, children and infants included, because a float aircraft flies to a weight rather than to a seat count.
Where does the seaplane land in Islamorada?
On the water, on the sheltered Florida Bay side of the islands, where the marinas and the docks already are. The Atlantic side carries the reef and the swell, so the bay is the working water.
Because the aircraft is amphibious it can also use a runway when the bay is rough and the nearest one that takes a charter is at Marathon, about half an hour further down the highway. Which of the two your day uses is agreed before you book, not decided at the dock.
Is flying to Islamorada really faster than driving?
Yes and the gap is bigger than the mileage suggests. US 1 is the only road into the Keys, the drive from Miami is about 80 miles and it takes an hour and a half to two hours when the road is behaving.
On a winter weekend or a holiday it runs to two and a half or three. The flight is about twenty minutes and it ends where you are staying rather than at a car park.
Is there an airport in Islamorada?
No. There is no airport in the village at all, which is the reason this route exists on floats. The nearest runway that takes a charter is at Marathon, roughly half an hour further south by road and the nearest commercial airport is Miami itself. So any arrival by runway ends with a car and a stretch of US 1, whichever end you take it from.
Can you do Islamorada as a day trip from Miami?
Yes and it is the most common way parties do it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting in the Keys rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. The day needs nothing on your list at all: send the date and the party and the rest is arranged. Nothing about the aircraft is shared with anyone.
How late can we fly back from Islamorada on the same day?
A seaplane needs daylight on the water. Landings run from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so the day has a hard end rather than an open one and the window moves through the year.
The latest useful departure for your date comes back with the quote rather than as a rule of thumb. A return that would arrive after dark lands on a lit runway instead of on water, which is a change of landing point rather than a cancelled evening.
How many people can fly to Islamorada on one charter?
The aircraft is chartered whole rather than sold by the seat, so your party travels together on one booking and comes home on the same aircraft.
How many seats that is depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the payload once baggage is aboard, so it is confirmed with the quote rather than promised in advance. Send the headcount and say whether children are travelling: they count as passengers.
How much luggage can we take to Islamorada and can we bring rods or dive gear?
Rods, dive gear and hard cases all travel regularly, within the payload for the aircraft on the day. The limit is a weight rather than a bag count, which is why bulky equipment is declared when you book rather than weighed at the dock: it comes out of the same payload the passengers do.
Islamorada is a fishing address, so this question comes up on most of these flights and it is answered with the itinerary.
What happens if the weather stops the flight to Islamorada?
Water operations depend on wind and sea state as well as visibility, so a departure can move on a day that looks clear from the beach and summer afternoons move return legs more often than mornings.
The call belongs to the operator rather than the guest and you are told before you book how a moved departure is handled. Because the aircraft carries only your party, a new slot is agreed with you rather than assigned to you.
How do you book a private seaplane charter to Islamorada?
Send three things: which Miami departure point suits you, how many guests and from when to when. Back comes what is free on that date, the boarding time and what the day costs.
A charter is priced as a whole aircraft rather than per seat, so the number moves with which aircraft flies your date, how many of you there are once bags are aboard and how long the aircraft waits in the Keys. You have the whole itinerary before anything is due.
Can the seaplane take us on to Key West or the Bahamas the same day?
Yes. Islamorada sits at the top of the chain rather than the end of it and the same aircraft carries on to Marathon, Big Pine Key, Sugarloaf Key and Key West, or back north and across to the islands.
Say so when you send the date, because a second leg changes the timing and a Bahamas leg is arranged with the same booking. For a boat or a private stretch of water we pass the coordinates, the pilots decide whether they can put down there and a tender has to be in the water to collect you.
Can I bring a pet on a seaplane charter?
Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.
Next Step
Ready to Book a Seaplane Charter Miami to Islamorada?
Send the departure point, the party size and from when to when. Nothing else needs planning: you get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the Islamorada day costs.
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