Miami is three cities and a swamp. Book it in that order.
Which bay cruise actually passes the houses it advertises. What an airboat morning costs once the bus fare is in. Whether Key Largo is worth the drive. Reviews of every tour across South Florida.
A bay cruise, an airboat, Little Havana and the deco strip.
The four bookings a first Miami trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say about it.
01The first afternoonBiscayne Bay Millionaire’s Homes Sightseeing CruiseNinety minutes on Biscayne Bay past Star Island, leaving from Bayside. The cheapest way to see the skyline properly.
02The morning out westEverglades National Park Airboat Tour & Wildlife ShowAirboat and wildlife show inside Everglades National Park, an hour from Brickell. Go early, before the heat and the mosquitoes.
03The evening in HavanaLittle Havana Food and Walking Tour in MiamiCalle Ocho on foot: a ventanita, a hand-rolled cigar, croquetas and a domino park. More travellers rate this than anything else on the site.
04The deco walkThe Official Art Deco Walking Tour by The Miami Design Preservation LeagueThe Miami Design Preservation League run the official one along Ocean Drive. Ninety minutes, and the pastel finally makes sense.
Miami, the sawgrass, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, the first Keys.
Miami
The Everglades
Fort Lauderdale
West Palm Beach
The upper KeysIn Miami the good day starts at a dock, not a kerb.
Biscayne Bay does the celebrity houses and the skyline. The New River does Fort Lauderdale from behind the hedges. Key Largo does reef. Three kinds of day on the water, and what it costs to board each one.
Six starting points between South Beach and Key Largo.
A deco strip on the sand, a bay full of other people’s houses, a Cuban high street, a river town up the coast, sawgrass to the west and the first island in the chain. Pick where you are standing, and the best day out from it.
The Everglades is an hour from Brickell and nothing like it.
A river sixty miles wide moving at a foot an hour, with alligators in it. Most trips pair a fan-boat run through the sawgrass with a wildlife show and a bus back; the small-group ones go further into the park and talk less. Book the first departure - by noon the sun is flat and the animals have gone under.
South Florida’s most popular days out.
Every tour we have reviewed →The trips more travellers book than anything else between Palm Beach and Key Largo, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Little Havana Food and Walking Tour in Miami
Taste Cuban classics, watch cigar rolling, hear Calle Ocho music, and learn Little Havana’s story on a small-group Miami food walk.
From · $69
Read our review →
2
Everglades Airboat, Wildlife Show & Bus Transfer
from $49
3
Biscayne Bay Millionaire’s Homes Sightseeing Cruise
from $20
4
Everglades National Park Airboat Tour & Wildlife Show
from $42
5
Water Taxi All Day hop-on hop-off Venice of America Boat Tour
from $38
6
Hop-on Hop-off Open-top Bus Tour and Optional Cruise
from $45
7
Speedboat Sightseeing Adventure of Miami
from $45
8
2 hrs Miami Private Boat Tour with Cooler, Ice, Bluetooth Stereo
from $65
Three Miamis, and none of them is the beach.
Palm trees and a warm sea are the easy part of Florida. A pastel hotel strip built in the 1930s, a Cuban high street with a live domino game, and twenty blocks of warehouse wall painted end to end are not.
The Art Deco District
Eight hundred buildings went up on the sand between 1923 and 1943, and by the 1970s the city was ready to bulldoze them. A preservation league fought that off block by block, then painted the survivors in sherbet colours that were never original. The tours run in the late afternoon when the neon comes on and the porthole windows and eyebrow ledges finally read as a style rather than a colour scheme.
- 1The Official Art Deco Walking Tour by The Miami Design Preservation League★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,580 reviews
- 2Miami South Beach Art Deco Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,039 reviews
- 3Miami Beach Food and Art Deco Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 245 reviews
Little Havana
The Cubans who arrived after 1959 landed on Southwest Eighth Street and stayed. It is still a working high street: a ventanita window pouring cortaditos onto the pavement, cigars rolled at a table in the window, guayaberas on rails, and Maximo Gomez Park where the domino games run under a roof and the arguments are older than most of the players. Go hungry and go late in the day.
- 1Little Havana Food and Walking Tour in Miami★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8,882 reviews
- 2Little Havana Food Walking Tour with Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,181 reviews
- 3Authentic Food and Culture Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 679 reviews
The Wynwood Walls
A developer bought a block of dead garment warehouses in 2009 and handed the walls to street artists instead of a demolition crew. The paint spread outward for twenty blocks and the neighbourhood came with it. The murals are repainted constantly, so nobody sees the same Wynwood twice - which is why the golf-cart and small-group tours, with someone who knows what changed last month, are worth more here than almost anywhere.
- 1Wynwood Graffiti Golf Cart Small-Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,646 reviews
- 2Wynwood Walls Skip-the-Line Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 840 reviews
- 3Wynwood Art District 1-Hour Street Art Tour by Golf Cart★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 492 reviews
What a day out in Miami actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A lot of the best days here come in under the cost of dinner on Ocean Drive.
Bay cruises, the Wynwood walls, deco walks, airboat mornings and the hop-on bus.
The full days: Key West and back, reef snorkelling off Key Largo, small-group Everglades, food walks.
Private boats, offshore charters, helicopters over the beach and the once-a-trip splurges.
Miami rains hard at four o’clock, then stops.
From June to October the heat builds all morning and comes down as a thunderstorm somewhere between three and five. It is loud, it floods the causeways, and it is usually over in forty minutes. Plan the water and the sawgrass for the morning, and keep something indoors or under a roof for the afternoon - a cigar factory, a food hall, a gallery block, a covered domino game.
Four South Florida bookings that will not wait.
Most of this coast can be arranged the night before from a bar stool. These four run on hull capacity, park schedules and a road that only goes one way.
- 01Key West Day Trip with Pickup at Selected HotelsFourteen hours door to door down a single highway. The coaches leave once, early, and they leave full.
- 02Half Day Snorkel Trip on Reefs in the Florida KeysReef boats out of Key Largo carry a fixed number of masks and sail on the morning forecast, not on demand.
- 03Everglades Airboat, Wildlife Show & Bus TransferThe first departure is the cool one and the only one where the wildlife is still moving. It sells out ahead of the rest of the day.
- 04Little Havana Food and Walking Tour in MiamiSmall groups, one guide, and the kitchens hold the tables. Weekends go a week or more in advance.
By place — the coast, the sawgrass and the chain
By kind of day — deck, sawgrass, kitchen or street
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