Miami travel guide

Miami is large in size as well as personality; Greater Miami, made up of over 30 municipalities, reaches over 500 sq miles (1,300 sq km). Full of energy yet also casual, it quickly latches on to new hotels and nightclubs, even in the face of grittier urban concerns. It hosts three major annual festivals.

Central Miami

Downtown Miami is a busy area of shops, restaurants and nightspots, based around Flagler Street and Biscayne Boulevard. This part of Central Miami is where you'll find the Bayside Marketplace and the Miami Art Museum. Also in central Miami, south of downtown, is a Cuban neighborhood and two of Miami's cheeriest neighborhoods, Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. Coral Gables has a Mediterranean look, and is renowned for its 1920s landmark, the Biltmore Hotel. Coconut Grove was once an artists' hang-out, but is now gentrifying into a shopping and nightlife destination.

Miami Beach

Connected to mainland Miami by causeways across Biscayne Bay, ther barrier island of Miami Beach is where Miami gets its reputation as a leisure destination. The miles of beaches, fronted by hotels and condos, have gone through a succession of ups and downs - from elite playground in the 1940s and 50s to urban decay in the 1970s to the New Riviera of the 1990s.

Miami Beach's latest rebirth began at the bottom of the island, in the South Beach neighborhood. In the 1970s, preservationists started beating the drums for the Art Deco buildings that crowded this area, remnants of an earlier heyday. In 1979, an official historic district was founded and things started to turn around.