Marathon Air Museum in Marathon

At the Marathon Air Museum in The Florida Keys, the usual museum distance between visitor and machine shrinks fast. 

Operated by Chapter 1241 of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) at Marathon’s airport, the site is shaped by people who love airplanes enough to keep telling their stories. The museum is even located inside a working airport hangar, giving visitors the feeling of stumbling into aviation’s back room.

In a region better known for bridges, boats, and turquoise water, the Air Museum offers a unique, hyper-local history of flight. The biggest draw of the museum is perhaps the Beech C-45 Expeditor, used in the U.S. Air Force during WWII. 

Other historic aircrafts, models, and aviation memorabilia fill the space—plus, an old-school fire engine—and volunteer guides are always around to give guests the inside scoop on each artifact’s unique past. If you’re lucky, you may even get to sit in the pilot seat of one of the aircrafts or see a few planes take off up close.