Welcome to Miami Beach, FL

Welcome to Miami Beach, FL

Occupying an island that nearly abuts Miami on Florida's southeastern coast, Miami Beach is a city within a city, and it's got more than enough style, culture and clout to hold its own. This sultry strip of sand and palms melds a history in and out of the American spotlight with a diverse, energetic population--and melts the hearts of visitors from all around the world.

The hub of Miami Beach is the area known as South Beach (SoBe), where celebrities and models roam, tourists gawk, and hipsters flock. Geographically, it encompasses everything on the island's eastern shore between Southern Pointe and 24th Street, but the spiritual heart of South Beach is the Art Deco District, the one square mile of vintage buildings that typify the ambitious architectural movements that dominated the area's building boom of the 1920s. In the early 1980s, Miami Beach was all but lost to a swelling tide of retirees and economic crime. However, thanks to efforts of a handful visionaries and entrepreneurs, this district became the first 20th century city district to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places and underwent an almost miraculous rejuvenation. Before long, the renewed pulse of South Beach enlivened all of Miami Beach; the hotels that once hosted presidents and dignitaries, that were once frequented by musicians and mafiosos and known worldwide, returned to their former glory.

The main drag of South Beach is Ocean Drive, most notably the strip between 5th Street and 15th Street. It's an oceanfront smorgasbord of food and lodging, where curbside cafés provide front-row seats to SoBe's most popular spectator sport: people watching, where the goal is to see and be seen. It's easy to rack up an impressive score with an afternoon of beachfront sun-bathing and café kibitzing, but the points really pile up in the countless nightclubs that operate well into the morning.

South Beach abounds with movie stars, flashy fashionistas, astronomically expensive boutique hotels and chic cafés, but it offers more than the superficial flicker of frivolous spending and famous people: Museums house art collections of astounding depth or explore local architecture; cultural fairs celebrate personal liberty, ethnic identity and diversity.

Just as there is more to South Beach than meets the eye, there is more to Miami Beach than South Beach's 24 glitzy blocks. To the north, things get a little quieter as the string of all-night clubs comes to an end, but the beach keeps on going. North of 24th Street, condos begin to replace hotels, and high-rises attempt to reach the impossible heights of the cost of their oceanfront properties. The beach is quieter, too, but the views are of the same vast Atlantic. At the very top of Collins Drive, the village of Bal Harbour, with its collection of elite boutiques with plush price tags and a few posh hotels, typically attracts luxury travelers with expensive tastes.

The high season for Miami Beach runs from early Fall to late Spring. This is when the days are the coolest and the nightclubs hottest. Rooms are significantly cheaper throughout the remaining seasons, when the photo-shoots and celebrity sightings may be fewer and further between, but there is no shortage of the mirthful or metropolitan attractions that make Miami Beach stand out among the many cities under the sun.