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Your holiday in Miami
There is nowhere in the world quite like Miami for sheer visual excitement and style: Art Deco hotels in peachy pastel shades; all-American girls scooting past on roller blades; sleek Miami Vice-style speedboats; open-top limos; fashion shoots among the palms on the white-sand beach. You’ve seen it in the movies, on TV, now come and experience it for real. We’ve taken care to set you down right in the heart of the action, on legendary South Beach, or ‘SoBe’ as it is better known. The golden-white sands stretch for miles and the architecture that backs it is eye-popping. Another bonus is that you can forget all about your car. You can either walk or the South Beach Local bus will shuttle you to and fro.
Our hotels are among the very best and chicest on South Beach. Celebrities spotted in the Delano recently include Will Smith and Sandra Bullock, they don’t come any more A-list than that! But don’t be intimidated, South Beach caters to everyone, and if dedicated partying isn’t your thing there is also every opportunity for rest and relaxation away from the crowds.
Our hotels are among the very best and chicest on South Beach. Celebrities spotted in the Delano recently include Will Smith and Sandra Bullock, they don’t come any more A-list than that! But don’t be intimidated, South Beach caters to everyone, and if dedicated partying isn’t your thing there is also every opportunity for rest and relaxation away from the crowds.
Where to stay in Miami
We have a selection of hand picked Hotels in Miami |
View our Hotels in Miami > |  |
After Sundown
Miami is often referred to as the capital of Latin America, and after dark vibrates to the rhythms of Spanish-speaking DJs spinning salsa, meringue and rhumba. Reggae is very popular too. Look at all the glamorous publicity photographs and you might think that South Beach is a body beautiful, celebrity-drenched playground which is out of bounds to mere mortals. Just remember that for every celeb, there’s a thousand ‘ordinary’ Miami visitors, just like yourself, and they want to party too. Of course you’ll find the door policies at the hottest joints in town restrictive but they are very much the minority. Start the night with a cocktail at the poolside Delano bar which is refreshingly unstuffy yet a great place for celebrity-spotting, Move on for a home-brewed beer or two at the Abbey Brewing Company, South Beach's cosy microbrewery. For live blues and jazz take a cab downtown to Tobacco Road, it’s Miami's oldest bar and one of its friendliest too.
Hit the Beach
Miami Beach is huge. It stretches from South Pointe Park, a few hundred yards south of South Beach central, and heads north almost to Fort Lauderdale South Pointe is a great place to start and get in the swing of Miami life. Here you’ll find stunt-kite flyers, swimmers, and windsurfers. At the southernmost tip, where the fishermen wait for a bite, you can watch spectacular cruise ships sailing into the Port of Miami, one of the world’s largest cruise ports. On South Beach central, in fact just outside our hotels, you’ll find the beautiful people topping up their tans or maybe taking part in a fashion shoot. If you’re looking for an all-over tan, head for Haulover Beach, a clothing-optional stretch of sand just north of Bal Harbour! We particularly like to get away from it all at Virginia Key on Key Biscayne which has lots of facilities for all the family. It’s just across the causeway, so you will need to catch a cab but it’s worth it.Shop in style
Shopping on funky pedestrianised Lincoln Road Mall would be a delight even if you had no intention of buying anything. The ‘Fifth Avenue of the South’ features an exceptional collection of Art Deco buildings and in recent years has acquired an equally exceptional, and eclectic collection of shops: sexy clothing boutiques; one-of-a-kind home and gift stores; cutting-edge art galleries; great bookstores and shoe stores, a weekly farmers' market, plus sidewalk cafés and restaurants to revive flagging shoppers. Española Way, a favourite Miami Vice backdrop, is another gorgeous looking Mediterranean-style South Beach street, featuring eclectic arty shops and a weekend market plus some of Miami’s best places to eat and drink.If South Beach shops are not to your taste head downtown to Bayside Marketplace with over 100 ‘specialty shops’, dining for every taste, budget and nationality and live entertainment – much of it free – day and night. Here you’ll find flagship big name stores that you are more familiar with, such as Gap, Victoria's Secret and the Disney Store. In fact whether you’re interested in shopping or not, Bayside Marketplace is a great introduction to Miami’s vibrant multi-ethnic scene. Several boat trips depart from here too.
James recommends
- Spend a day in Lovely leafy Coconut Grove, Miami’s oldest suburb, with many original Spanish colonial buildings, is also one of its trendiest with some great European-style outdoor restaurants and cafés, brilliant shopping and hot nightspots.
- All the family will enjoy a day at MetroZoo. The finest zoo in Florida, this largely cage-free environment lets you see the animal in as near-natural a setting as possible
- Take a cruise from Bayside Marketplace, to see the homes of the famous and infamous including Don Johnson, Al Capone, Howard Hughes and Elizabeth Taylor
- From Bayside Marketplace jump aboard the driverless Metromover monorail and enjoy the Disney-like shuttle through the Downtown skyline, gaping at the sleek high-rise buildings which rise to 55-storeys.
- Drive over the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne and enjoy a Sunday brunch next to the Nature Reserve
- Relax with a coffee or cocktail on Ocean Drive, South Beach, and watch the Caddillacs cruise past.
