Key West

I didn't mean to go on a Hemingway tour. I didn't realize I was doing it until my husband, Jim, and I were in Key West in 2022 and made a point of going to Hemingway’s home, which led to going into Sloppy Joe's, where Hemingway supposedly drank and smoked and relaxed when not writing. The house was beautiful, and the drinks were delicious. No wonder he spent so much time here.

In 2016, Jim and I went to Havana, and we took a classic car ride to Finca Vigía to see where Hemingway read his papers and hung his animal trophies from his safari hunts. We made our way to El Floridita, Hemingway’s statue in the corner smirking at the crowd, which, like us, was there to drink too many daiquiris. We had so many we couldn’t find our way back to our Casas Particulares for what felt like hours. I went to Uganda in 2017, and on a boat tour, a guide pointed out that Hemingway was in an airplane crash at the very spot we were at on the bank of the Nile River. I took a picture. It looked like nothing but rocks and brush.

It was Key West when I realized I had now been to five known locations that Hemingway had been to sleep or eat or drink or crash-land. I felt a little weird following him around. But I guess that is travel. You’re never the first one to do it, so you are always following someone. And I guess if it is going to be someone, it might as well be Hemingway.