MIAMI · FLORIDA
Salt air, pastel light, the Magic City.
Everglades airboats, Biscayne Bay cruises, Art Deco mornings on South Beach and cafecito in Little Havana. Boat days on the bay, the long drive down to Key West, and the warm nights in between.
Only here
Only in Miami.
Boat tours and food walks turn up in every coastal city. A bay full of celebrity islands, a sawgrass wilderness at the edge of downtown, and Calle Ocho belong to this one.
On the bay
The Celebrity-Homes Cruise
Star Island, Hibiscus and Palm Island sit in the middle of Biscayne Bay, a chain of made land where the houses belong to names you know. You can only see them from the water, so the sightseeing boats out of Bayside loop the bay slowly while a guide calls out who lives where. Nowhere else do you cruise a guest list.
- 1 Miami: Biscayne Bay Millionaire’s Homes Sightseeing Cruise
- 2 Miami Skyline Boat Cruise Past Millionaire’s Homes Optional Stop
- 3 Miami Biscayne Bay rich and famous Sightseeing Boat Tour
The River of Grass
Airboat the Everglades
Forty minutes west of the high-rises the city simply stops and the largest subtropical wilderness in the country begins. A flat-bottomed airboat skims out over the sawgrass at speed, the fan roaring behind you, and the alligators slide off the banks as you pass. The one Miami day that feels like another planet.
- 1 From Miami: Everglades Airboat, Wildlife Show & Bus Transfer
- 2 Miami: Everglades National Park Airboat Tour & Wildlife Show
- 3 Everglades Small-Group Tour from Miami with Transportation
Calle Ocho
Little Havana on Foot
Eighth Street is the heart of Cuban Miami: cigars hand-rolled in the shopfront windows, croquetas and guava pastelitos from the bakeries, a cortadito at the ventanita and the constant click of dominoes in the park. A walking and food tour is how you read a neighbourhood that keeps its own time.
- 1 Little Havana Food and Walking Tour in Miami
- 2 Miami: Little Havana Food Walking Tour with Tastings
- 3 Little Havana: Authentic Food and Culture Walking Tour
The standout
The one to book first.
More travellers book this than anything else in Miami. A good place to start a plan.
The classics
Miami's Most Popular Tours
The Everglades airboats, the bay cruises, Little Havana and the Key West run. The days most people come to Miami for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Miami trip is built around.
The Everglades, the bay, South Beach, Little Havana, Wynwood and the Keys. The handful of days most Miami trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to do the Everglades.
The wetland starts forty minutes west of downtown, and there is more than one way in. Airboat, naturalist tour or paddle, depending on how fast you want to go and how close you want to get.
South Beach
Pastel and chrome on Ocean Drive.
South Beach holds the largest run of Art Deco architecture anywhere, roughly 800 candy-coloured buildings from the 1930s packed into a single square mile. A morning walking tour reads the porthole windows, the racing stripes and the old neon before the heat builds and Ocean Drive fills up.
Read the guide: walking South Beach and the Art Deco district →After dark
Miami starts a second shift at sunset.
The light turns pink over the bay and the city changes gear. Sunset cruises out of the marina, an open-top bus through the neon of Ocean Drive, rooftop views and the long warm evenings that made the place famous. After dark is its own trip down here.
See the evening experiences →The bay
The whole city sits at the water's edge.
Biscayne Bay runs the length of Miami between the mainland and the barrier islands: calm turquoise water with the downtown towers on one side and South Beach on the other. Cruise it past the celebrity islands, sail it at sunset, or open the throttle on a speedboat.
Cruises & boat trips →Wynwood
A warehouse district painted wall to wall.
Twenty years ago Wynwood was empty warehouses north of downtown. Now every wall is a canvas: the open-air Wynwood Walls, the side-street murals, and the galleries and taprooms that grew up around them. A guided walk is how you catch the stories and the artists behind the paint.
- 1 Wynwood Graffiti Golf Cart Small-Group Tour
- 2 Miami: Wynwood Walls Skip-the-Line Ticket
- 3 Wynwood Art District 1-Hour Street Art Tour by Golf Cart
By pace
Slow it down or open it up.
Miami runs at every speed. Pastel mornings and long lunches at one end, jet skis and rooftops at the other. Pick the day you came for.
Take it slow
Sand, pastel and cafecito.Art Deco walks on South Beach, a slow food crawl through Little Havana, an easy cruise on the bay. The Miami you do on foot, with a coffee in hand.
Out and about
On the water, around the city.A Biscayne Bay cruise past the islands, an airboat into the Everglades, the hop-on hop-off loop through the neighbourhoods.
Full throttle
Open water, wide open.Jet skis across the bay, a speedboat blast past the skyline, parasails over the sand and the city after the sun goes down.
On the bay
Across Biscayne Bay at full throttle.
When the water is the whole point, you take an engine to it. Jet skis loop the bay past the islands, speedboats tear out toward the skyline, and the operators off the beach run parasails, tubes and the rest. Warm water, flat in the mornings, the city the whole way along the horizon.
See all 12 watersports tours →By neighbourhood
Every part of Miami is a different city.
South Beach for the Art Deco and the sand. Little Havana for the cafecito and the cigars. Wynwood for the murals. The Everglades for the sawgrass. Biscayne Bay for the skyline, and Key West for the long drive south.
By experience
Pick how to spend the day.
Boat if you want the bay. Airboat if you want the gators. Helicopter if you want the coastline from above. Walk South Beach, eat through Little Havana, or open the throttle on a jet ski.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Miami? A long weekend that covers the beach, the bay and the wild edge without a wasted hour.
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