Florida: A Tourist's Guide
Florida is America's America.
Outside of the inescapable cultural and economic black holes that are the Northeast Corridor and California, perhaps the most relevant place in the US is Florida. Florida has been the single fastest-growing state by net migration over the past 15 years. Its governor, Ron DeSantis, is maybe the most powerful governor in the country, and the President’s unofficial seat of power is Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. For a time, it looked like Miami might have been able to replace Silicon Valley and New York as the dominant city in tech and finance, respectively. Florida has Disney World and the massive Orlando tourism industry, Kennedy Space Center, the Miami Grand Prix, Art Basel, Inter Miami and Messi, and an economy larger than all but fourteen1 countries on Earth.
Florida’s history, too, has always represented America’s pioneering spirit. Florida was the first place in the US to be visited and settled by Europeans: first Juan Ponce de León’s expedition in 1513 and then the establishment of San Agustín (today St. Augustine) in 1565. It then saw nearly three centuries of being a very sparsely populated haven for pirates, escaped slaves, and pioneers looking to settle on America’s wild southern frontier. This changed when Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway, bringing civilization to the practically unsettled2 southern part of the state for the first time, sparking a population boom that’s continued to this day. Since 1880, Florida’s population has increased nearly a hundredfold, leading to major innovations in urban planning: Coral Springs was one of the first modern master-planned cities in the US, Seaside and Celebration are some of the best New Urbanist developments, and the massive retirement community of The Villages was the single fastest-growing metropolitan area in the entire country during the 2010s.
I’ve lived in Florida almost my entire life. My family moved to Delray Beach in 2006 when I was two and settled in Boca Raton a year later, where we still live. I go to college at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I’ve been lucky enough to have been all over the state, and with the new GTA VI trailer having just come out, now is as good a time as any to write a travel guide.
Miami
Florida’s largest metropolitan area by far, and its undisputed cultural and economic capital. If you only go to one place in Florida, it should be Miami.
Downtown Miami/Brickell has one of the most impressive skylines in the country. It's changed dramatically since the first time I visited and continues to evolve rapidly. New skyscrapers go up all the time, usually modern white concrete with blue windows. Bayside Marketplace, though touristy, is nice to walk around. Maurice A. Ferré Park is a nice place to sit. Key word here is “new”. Brickell City Center is a cool new urban development/shopping mall, the Underline is a fantastic new park under the elevated Metrorail line, and the new Brightline train can take you throughout South Florida or even Orlando. A friend observed that Downtown is a lot like Singapore: hot and humid with lots of brand-new white skyscrapers, mixed-use development, and greenery. It’s pretty solarpunk.
Latin American food is fantastic here. Look for Cuban, Venezuelan, Colombian, Peruvian, not so much Mexican (that's more Texas and the Southwest).
Miami is hot pretty much all the time. There are about three months a year (December, January, February) where daily highs are below 80, overnight lows are below 65, and it’s less likely to be super humid and rainy. This is the best time to visit, though everybody else knows this and there will be more crowds thanks to tourists and snowbirds. Summer is extremely hot, with “feels like” temperatures around 90-100 during the day from mid-May to mid-October. Unlike most places, it doesn’t get cool at night - it’ll be like 80 degrees at 4 AM. It’s also extremely humid during the summer and it rains most days (though the rains are usually pretty hard and fast in the afternoon, and the mornings are usually sunny).
Driving around Miami is somewhat dangerous, especially on I-95 and around the more Hispanic areas. Be careful. Transit is quite good around downtown thanks to the free Metromover, but the sparsity of the Metrorail/Tri-Rail/Brightline and slowness of the bus system means you'll be better off with a car. Traffic can get very *very* slow on the MacArthur Causeway (connecting the Beach to the mainland) and on I-95 during rush hour, so be prepared.
There are two Miamis: the center and south (downtown, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, South Miami, Pinecrest, Kendall, etc): quite clean and safe, more white, wealthy, expensive, not many homeless people around; and the north and west (North Miami, Hialeah, Fontainebleau, Tamiami): still pretty safe (except Gladeview/Brownsville), very Hispanic and mostly Spanish-speaking, and generally more American suburbaslop and less interesting architecture.
Great museums here include the Vizcaya (a beautiful Tuscan Mediterranean Revival estate in Coconut Grove), the Frost Science Museum downtown, and the highly underrated Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach, a literal Spanish monastery built in the 1100s in Segovia and shipped and reassembled brick by brick in Florida. The Pérez Art Museum is okay but not great. The Miami Children's Museum was a lot of fun when I was a little kid. I haven’t been to the World Erotic Art Museum or Jewish Museum in Miami Beach but I’ve heard they’re both cool.
Miami Beach is my favorite part of the city and has some of the best urban fabric of anywhere in the United States: long houses close together with the narrow side facing the streets, hidden back alleys for car access, major shopping streets flanking the island so that they're walking distance away from anywhere, parks and trees all over, etc. Walk all the way up Collins Ave, work out at Muscle Beach, chill at Flamingo Park or at one of the cafes on the west side, admire the view of the city and cruise ships from South Pointe Park. Sardinia Enoteca has the best lamb I've ever had, La Leggenda has some of the best pizza. South Beach is much more fun than the north side, which has more retirees, houses, condo towers. Avoid Miami Beach during spring break. Otherwise, highly recommend.
Wynwood is a hip, gentrified neighborhood with graffiti and posters everywhere. It was once the center of the world during the COVID ZIRP crypto boom. Get breakfast at Zak the Baker, peruse the cars and guitars across the street at Walt Grace Vintage, pay the $15 to see the Wynwood Walls if you want (though this is certainly not mandatory), get lunch at The Taco Stand, pose with guns at Lock & Load. Mandatory: even if you aren't into designer clothing, see the nearby Miami Design District, which is an incredibly well-done urban space with some great food.
Little Havana feels like a foreign country. Written text and spoken words are all in Spanish. Walk down Calle Ocho, check out the park dedicated to anti-communist guerrilla fighters and the park where old Cuban men play chess and dominos, try free samples of Cuban coffee in the tourist shops, eat Cuban food in the restaurants, listen to the bands playing Cuban music on the streets. If you want to see the “old” Miami of Godfather II and Scarface, with its one-story Spanish colonial homes and wood-frame houses, it'll be around here.
Aventura is a very interesting development, full of gleaming condo towers and with a surprising amount of population density (and Jews). But it's not exactly walkable, there's hardly any transit, and the traffic is absolutely abysmal. The Aventura Mall is colossal - largest in the state and fifth-largest in the country. Its Apple Store is one of my favorites.
Coral Gables is a nice upscale shopping/dining area but somewhat lacking in character. Not really worth it by itself. The Venetian Pool, however, is awesome, and the UMiami campus is beautiful, modern, and nice to walk around.
Key Biscayne is underrated. There's not much to do in the town (though Milanezza is a very cool Argentinian-Italian restaurant/market), but Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park is a much more chill beach than Miami Beach. Biscayne Bay is a nice place to go out on a boat, if you have one.
South Florida
Broward County and Palm Beach County.
The Everglades are a massive, mostly empty swamp covering the southern tip of the state. You can see it by driving through I-75’s “Alligator Alley” or taking an airboat tour, but there’s not much to do here unless you’re a real nature lover and can tolerate lots of heat and mosquitoes.
The Keys are absolutely beautiful and have a very different feel from the rest of the state - less swamp/forest, more Caribbean islands. Drive slowly down to Key West and stop along the way to explore the small beaches. Along the way you'll see the remnants of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railroad extension from Miami to Key West. Eat fresh seafood. Key West is more town and less beach than the other keys. Be sure to take plenty of walks to enjoy the white colonial buildings and palm trees. Watch the sunset from always-vibrant, westward-facing Mallory Square. Visit the historic homes of Ernest Hemingway and Harry S. Truman.
Fort Lauderdale is Miami’s biggest satellite city. There’s less to do in downtown Fort Lauderdale than in Miami. The Museum of Discovery and Science is very cool and has Florida's only 70mm IMAX screen (I rewatched Oppenheimer here, very worth it). On the east side are some pretty nice canals with lots of great houses to admire from the outside. Las Olas Beach is not really worth it unless you're into college party culture - it’s too crowded and chaotic, and hard to find parking. Avoid at all costs during spring break.
Broward County outside of Fort Lauderdale is arguably more interesting. The beaches are better: my favorites are the north part of Pompano Beach around North Ocean Park and the area around the Deerfield Beach pier. The western suburbs: Sunrise, Plantation, Davie, and Pembroke Pines have the best Asian food in South Florida. Dania Pointe in Dania Beach is the best shopping center, and Sawgrass Mills (thanks to it not being as bougie as Aventura) is the most interesting mall in South Florida. The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood (“the guitar”) is very cool, like a mini Las Vegas in Florida.
Boca Raton, my hometown, has a decent amount to do. The best part is the old southeast, designed and built by Addison Mizner. The Boca Resort, though a private club and hotel, is beautiful - get in if you can. Mizner Park is a nice shopping center, and the surrounding area is quite walkable: stroll Palmetto Park Road to the beach or go to the downtown library. If you have a boat, take it out on Lake Boca Raton or Lake Wyman. The rest of Boca is your standard wealthy Jewish Florida suburb. Town Center Mall, University Commons, and Uptown Boca/Mission Bay are places to shop. You can also visit the Costco that AJ and Big Justice go to or relax on the very chill beach at Spanish River Park. The parks here are quite good: Sugar Sand and Patch Reef are full of facilities, and Boca Tierra Park is a good place to read. One of the best things here is the beautiful Spanish River Library and its adjacent lake, parks, and walking trails.
Delray Beach is underrated. Its downtown area is vibrant, artsy, and walkable, with a lot to see and do: the Tennis Center, Old School Square, Veterans Park, the beach itself. West of that is the stunningly underrated Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, the remnant of a Japanese pineapple plantation from the early 1900s that today is the best Japanese garden I've been to outside of Japan, with a restaurant and museum to boot. The area around the Delray Marketplace (especially Lyons Road) is a pretty place to bike around some of the last remaining farmland in the area, and the boat ramp at Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is the best place to watch the sunset over the Everglades.
West Palm Beach is the second-most interesting city in South Florida after Miami. CityPlace downtown is a cool shopping center with a relaxed vibe and lot to see, even a Herman Miller store. The new builds here are generally very well done, not five-over-one slop. The Norton Museum is the best art museum in the state. The island (Palm Beach) is very nice. Walk along Worth Avenue and see the Worth Ave Clock Tower, and visit railroad tycoon Henry Morrison Flagler's mansion (now a museum). If you can somehow get into Mar-a-Lago (Trump's winter White House), definitely pay it a visit. The West Palm Beach area is better for outdoor activities: Lion Country Safari has free-roaming lions and rhinos to drive past, Okeeheelee Park has all kinds of watersports, Rapids Water Park is the best in South Florida, Jupiter Beach is one of the best beaches in the area.
Central and West Florida
Downtown Orlando is decent by American standards. The Orlando Public Library is pretty nice, and so is walking around Lake Eola. Toward the east are some nice southern suburbs with porches and mature trees. Avoid the areas (Callahan and Parramore) west of I-4: they have some of the worst urban decay I've seen so close to the downtown of a Florida city.
If you're into architecture and good urban or suburban fabric, go to Winter Park and Winter Garden. Both excel on both fronts. Lake Eola Heights is good too. Unlike the much newer South Florida, there’s still a good amount of old-growth Southern-style suburbs with mature trees, big porches, and the like.
The west side of Orlando is where all the resorts are. Disney is my favorite: the best park is Epcot, followed by Magic Kingdom. Be sure to take advantage of Disney's free and expansive transit network to see all the hotels - my favorites are the Contemporary and Fort Wilderness. Disney Springs is a fun shopping area too, and Celebration is an interesting example of a fully-planned community from the 90s. If you like roller coasters or Warner Brothers IP, choose Universal over Disney. Western Orlando outside the parks, around I-4 and International Drive, is a dense mess of hotels, condos, small amusement parks, and shopping malls.
The far east of Orlando is mostly standard new American exurbs (boring), but the UCF campus is worth the walk around. Continue eastward for a nice rural drive leading towards Cape Canaveral. Kennedy Space Center is awesome - be sure to go to the visitor center and (my favorite part) the Saturn V, and watch a NASA or SpaceX launch if you can.
Orlando has much better Asian food than South Florida. Go to Orlando Chinatown, Enson Market, and Lotte Plaza.
The Lake Wales Ridge is highly underrated and has a very different vibe from surrounding areas, with sand, scrub, and actual elevation (the rest of the peninsula is nearly completely flat at sea level). My family goes camping near Lake Wales every year. Also be sure to visit Bok Tower and its gardens, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Rural Central Florida can get very rural. The Florida Turnpike between Fort Pierce and Kissimmee is one of the emptiest stretches of highway in the country. There’s less swamp and more grassland/prairie than South Florida. There are also a lot of cattle ranches. Peace River is a nice place to go tubing or camping.
I've spent relatively very little time on the Gulf coast of Florida. Marco Island and Longboat Key are both nice beach-resort-type places (though I like the Keys much better). Tampa is rather boring for its size, though it has a nice riverwalk. I’ve never been to St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota, Fort Myers, or Naples, though I’ve heard St. Pete and Clearwater have some of the best beaches in the country.
North Florida
North Florida has a very different vibe from the rest of the state: less tropical, more subtropical; less beach, more forest; much more seasonal variation; less Hispanic/Caribbean/Jewish influence and more Southern influence; fewer palm trees and more Spanish-moss-covered oak and cypress. The summers are just as hot as in the south, but the winters are much cooler. In Gainesville, January lows are in the 40s and highs are in the 60s, and the coldest nights can even dip into the 20s.
North Florida’s nature is also quite different. Instead of beaches, the main attractions are the abundant, natural, freshwater springs with famously cool, clear water that you can swim in. Rainbow Springs is one of the best. Silver Springs, near Ocala, was the biggest tourist attraction in Florida before Disney World was built. You can swim with manatees at Crystal River.
Gainesville is great. The University of Florida campus is beautiful and walkable, the downtown area, Depot Park, and nearby residential streets have some of that great old southern urban fabric, and the entire city is covered in mature trees. Paynes Prairie has some great hikes with great views, and Devil’s Millhopper is a huge sinkhole with a rainforest in it. Thanks to it being a college town, there’s an abundance of good food and a lot of young people around. It feels vibrant.
St. Augustine is the oldest European settlement in the United States. As such, it's maybe the only city on the East Coast with an authentic Spanish colonial feel to it. Most of St. George Street has been tourist-trap-ified, but the 350-year-old star fort Castillo de San Marcos is very worth visiting, as is the Plaza de la Constitución and Flagler College. West of the city is one of Florida's two Buc-ee's locations, which is worth a visit to see just how good a gas station can be.
Jacksonville is very boring. As a tourist, avoid. St. John’s Town Center is a pretty good upscale mall, and I’ve heard the Cummer Museum, Museum of Science and History, and beaches (Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach, and Amelia Island in particular) are nice, but there are better cities in Florida.
Tallahassee is also rather boring. It has the state capitol building and Florida State University campus, but isn’t really worth visiting outside of those (the Alfred B. Maclay Gardens were quite nice though).
Sadly, I’ve never been to the Panhandle west of Tallahassee. The Panhandle travel guide will have to wait for another day.
Aside from California, Florida is probably the most interesting and diverse state in the country. We have huge cities, endless suburbs, swamps, beaches, grasslands, springs, and everything in between. Even after nearly two decades, I still have so much to explore here. Hopefully this guide is a good start.
Florida’s GDP is about $1.7 trillion. The only countries that are higher are the US, China, Germany, India, Japan, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Spain, South Korea, and Australia.