Long Key State Park and King Tides: the closure notice and how to check before you drive

Long Key State Park has a closure notice that does not tell you when the closure happens. It is one sentence long and has no schedule attached, which leaves the checking to you. Here is what it says, what else is closed at the park, and a short routine for checking before you spend the drive. We read the Long Key park page on October 24, 2026.

What the notice says

Effective September 26, 2026, Florida State Parks says Long Key State Park may be closed for portions of the day due to tidal surge flooding from King Tides. That is the whole notice as we read it on October 24, 2026. It does not list dates, tide times or which parts of the park flood, and we found no posted schedule on the park’s pages.

We will not fill that gap with a tide table from another source. A tide prediction tells you about water levels; it does not tell you whether the rangers have closed the gate. The park is the authority on that, so the routine below goes to the park.

• Effective September 26, 2026: Long Key State Park may be closed for portions of the day due to tidal surge flooding from King Tides. Florida State Parks: Long Key State Park Know Before You Go

What else is closed

A separate notice, effective July 12, 2026, closes all primitive camping and the Golden Orb hiking trail for construction. The park page lists two hiking trails, so if a walk was part of the plan, keep the Golden Orb closure in mind.

The park page lists swimming, kayaking with rentals from the ranger station, bird-watching, picnicking, flats fishing and snorkeling along a natural Atlantic shoreline. The notices we read did not name any of those as closed, though a day-part closure would of course stop all of them while it lasts.

• Effective July 12, 2026: all primitive camping and the Golden Orb hiking trail at Long Key State Park are closed for construction. Florida State Parks: Long Key State Park Know Before You Go
• Long Key State Park offers swimming, kayaking (rentals available from the ranger station), bird-watching, picnicking, flats fishing and snorkeling along a natural Atlantic shoreline, with two hiking trails. Florida State Parks: Long Key State Park

How to check before you drive out

1. Open the park page and read the Know Before You Go notices. Look at the effective date on each; the King Tide notice we read took effect September 26, 2026.
2. Call the park at 305-664-4815 on the morning you plan to go, and ask whether any part of the day is affected.
3. Pick a second beach. In the order our records list the islands, Long Key sits between Islamorada and Marathon; Anne’s Beach in Islamorada and Curry Hammock State Park in Marathon are the entries on either side of it in our finder.
4. If you are already on the road, the park address is 67400 Overseas Highway, Long Key.

When you call, ask two things: whether the day-use area is open, and whether the rangers expect to close any part of the day. A notice that says the park may be closed is a warning, not a forecast, and an answer given early in the morning can change by midday. If kayaking is the plan, the park page says rentals come from the ranger station, so the same call can cover the gate and the boats.

• Long Key State Park: 67400 Overseas Highway, Long Key, FL 33001; 305-664-4815. Florida State Parks: Long Key State Park

Hours and fees when it is open

Florida State Parks lists Long Key as open 8 a.m. until sunset, 365 days a year, as posted October 24, 2026. Vehicle admission is $4.50 for one person and $6 for two, plus 50 cents for each additional person; pedestrians, bicyclists and extra passengers pay $2.50. Each price includes the 50-cent Monroe County surcharge per person. By our arithmetic, a car of four pays $7.

• Long Key State Park is open 8 a.m. until sunset, 365 days a year. Vehicle admission: one person $4.50; two people $6; plus 50 cents per additional person; pedestrians, bicyclists and extra passengers $2.50 (each includes a 50-cent Monroe County surcharge per person). Florida State Parks: Long Key State Park hours & fees

How that surcharge works across the other parks is on our beach fees page.

Planning around a notice like this

A closure for part of a day is a planning problem more than a reason to skip the park. Give yourself room: put Long Key in a day with a second stop, not at the end of a long drive with nothing else planned. If the gate is closed when you arrive, ask the ranger station whether reopening is expected that day, and move to your second beach if not.

Our Long Key page carries the park’s notices with their dates, and the plan-your-visit page collects every closure notice in the inventory in one place.

Long Key closure questions

Written by the Florida Keys Beaches Editorial Team. Some content may be AI-generated. People check every fact before it publishes.

Dates, rules and hours can change. The organisers have the final word: Florida State Parks (official site)