Miami & the Keys 6th

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Beauty is the name of the game here. From fashion models to deco hotels, beach sunrises to a wetland ecosystem and alluring islands, South Florida is an aesthetic masterpiece.

South Florida is a land of dreams. Miami is known as the Magic City. Whichever way you cut it, imagination and innovation are big here, manifesting themselves in art, architecture and festivals. You see it from the extravagance of Lincoln Rd to the ephemeral neon beauty of Ocean Dr; from the cloud-kissing skyline of downtown Miami to the shells of empty condos that bankrupted their speculators; from the pink castle walls of a Coral Gables mansion to the dark, sexy lounges of Overtown; and from the Faberg-egg interior of the Vizcaya Museum to an experimental art piece in Midtown. Stay in Miami long enough and you might believe magic is real.

In Miami proper and Miami Beach, the newest neighborhoods are the districts where the creative community is opening the best restaurants, bars and clubs (and here the newest and the best often go hand in hand). Sometimes this takes the form of massive public investment realized in architectural masterpieces such as the Adrienne Arsht Center and the New World Center, two impressive performing arts spaces that have spruced up Miami and Miami Beach respectively. Sometimes it takes the form of young artists using open houses, gallery nights and special studio shows to gentrify entire swathes of neighborhood. In both ways, greater Miami is growing, physically and culturally.

If Miami is full of culture, fun and urban beauty, South Florida is full of natural beauty, especially the spectacular wetland ecosystem of the Everglades and the island jungles and waterways of the Keys. If you took America and shook it by its sides, all its eccentricities (and quite a few eccentrics) would tumble into the southeast corner pocket that is South Florida. What happens when these folks mix with the regions considerable immigrant population? Fun, diversity and the occasional chicken sacrifice to a vodou god. Miami is iconoclastic enough, but outside the city? In the Everglades youll find alligator wrestlers and Bigfoot hunters sharing a beer at crab shacks where panthers prowl the backyard. Head out to the Keys and youll meet drag queens working as insect exterminators and islands named No Name inhabited by miniature deer. All of this delightful sense of place is ensconced within considerable natural beauty: shimmering bays, serene tidal flats, fecund cypress groves, emerald islands scattered over a teal sea, and a bed of ancient-looking wetlands.

South Beachs Ocean Drive ()
JON DAVISON / LONELY PLANET IMAGES

Miami is a fun, good-looking city, and the best way to accept this truth is to head out on the town. In places like Midtown, Overtown and Coral Gables, you can find laid-back bars ( ) even dives! where clientele is glamorous, sexy and shiny, yet friendly and down to earth. Even the megaclubs on Miami Beach, with their occasional restrictive red ropes and sky-high cover charges, are worth checking out for their sheer dedication and innovation in the field of creating bacchanalian excess.

JOCHEN TACK / PHOTOLIBRARY

Sun-Worshipping on North Beach

When people think of fun in the sun and Miami, their mental Rolodex often flips to two words: South Beach. And dont get us wrong! South Beach is stupendous. But if youre interested in escaping the crowds, the pressure to look fabulous and again, people-spotting aside a generally higher quality of beach, head to North Beach ( ) are pretty enough to serve as your screensaver, and if you really fancy a complete tan, theres a clothing-optional beach here, too.

GREG BALFOUR EVANS / ALAMY

Alligator-Spotting in the Everglades

South Florida loves to embrace the new in fashion, culinary trends and whatever the world thinks is hip. But look beneath the regions surface (literally) and you find a landscape and inhabitants who are ancient. How old? It doesnt get much more primeval than alligators, designed by nature to be perfect, leathery carnivores; predators whose engineering was so flawless, they havent seen fit to change much since dinosaurs roamed. Spot dozens of gators from the boardwalks of the Royal Palm Visitor Center ( ).

MARK NEWMAN / LONELY PLANET IMAGES

Partying in Key West

Key West is many things: counterculture icon; southernmost tip of the continental USA; sun-drenched haven for the gay community. But let us never forget that for all these things, it is also, like it or not, a floating bar. Thousands of folks come here annually to cut loose. Join em! Start with a sunset over Mallory Square ( ) and get ready for the night of your life. Just dont plan much for the morning after.

RICHARD ELLIS / ALAMY

Exploring Calle Ocho

Ellos llaman a este barrio Little Havana pero no son solo Cubanos los que viven aqu. Sorry. Were just pointing out Little Havana ( ), nominal heart of Miamis Cuban community, is populated by more than Cubans. There are Spanish speakers from all over lining Calle Ocho, otherwise known as 8th St, one of the most colorful, culturally vibrant thoroughfares in the country. It helps to speak some Spanish, but it doesnt matter if you dont. Just grab a cigar, a tall fruit juice and place your finger on Miamis multicultural pulse.

TONY SAVINO / SYGMA / CORBIS

Gallery-Hopping the Design District

Miamis hippest residents pop into South Beach clubs occasionally, but for years the loci of cool-kid activity has been Midtown (the area north of Downtown that includes Wynwood and the Design District; ). Wine flows. The artsy, literati-minded and just plain glamorous dance from gallery to gallery. And new frontiers in Miami cool are pushed.