36 Hours in Miami

South Beach, Miami’s most popular destination, can feel tacky and chaotic. A better place to swim in the warm, turquoise ocean and sunbathe on wide swaths of sand is at Surfside Beach. There are miles of bike and running paths along the town’s beaches. Parking is much easier here, too, with lots across the street, like one on 95th Street ($4 an hour). The area is one of the most walkable in the county, attracting a tight-knit, religious Jewish community, whose members relax on the beach with their families, attend synagogue and walk to nearby kosher restaurants. The residents of this pristine place are still shocked by a deadly apartment building collapse in 2021.

The Little Havana neighborhood has been the heart of the Cuban exile community since the 1960s. Its demographics have changed, but the area is still the hub for Cuban culture, food and political protests. The Cuban American restaurant Doce Provisions is a testament to those born in Miami that hold onto their Latino roots. Start with the lechon asado buns, roast pork in a soft bao bun ($10.50); then move onto the fresh Florida mahi-mahi with a creamy coconut sauce ($25). Another option a short drive away is El Carajo, a tiny Spanish tapas restaurant named after a crude phrase in the same language. Located in a gas station convenience store, the restaurant has an expansive stock of wines instead of long shelves filled with chips and candy.

Sway your hips and spin in circles to the live salsa music at Ball & Chain (free entry), a dance club with a storied history nearly 90 years in the making (jazz musicians like Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Chet Baker have all performed here). The line outside moves quickly around this time, but the party really picks up at 11 p.m. Inside, there’s a D.J. playing modern Latino hits by Bad Bunny and Pitbull as people drink mojitos ($15), confetti is shot from canisters and smoke sinks to the dance floor from machines rigged in the ceiling. A dancer and percussionist use the free-standing bar as their stage while people form a conga line around them.

A signature Cuban breakfast in Miami is a decadent one. At Breadman Miami, in Westchester, it means boxes of flaky pastelitos (filled with guava and cheese, or meat); croquettes (or croquetas around here) with a gooey filling of ham, or sweet corn and cheese; toasted Cuban bread; and cafe con leche. The bakery is one of hundreds of examples in Miami of a diverse baking culture influenced by Latin America and the Caribbean. Hand-held pastries here can start at about $1.25 each. The shop’s owner was born and raised in Hialeah, where many Cubans live in the county. If you didn’t try the ropa vieja, a stewed beef dish, at Doce Provisions, try it in an empanada here. It is more of a grab-and-go spot, but there’s some seating inside.

The Rubell Museum ($15 admission), which moved to the Allapattah neighborhood from Wynwood in 2019, houses the Rubell family’s private collection of contemporary art. The collection of 7,400 works includes household names like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Yayoi Kusama (entry to Kusama’s installations is an extra $10). The museum’s fine-dining Basque restaurant, Leku, is worth a stop. Across the street in a gray warehouse is Superblue Miami ($39 admission), an immersive art experience that opened in 2021. One interactive exhibit called “Pulse Topology,” by the Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, projects your heartbeat through a stream of light from 3,000 light bulbs. An additional $12 offers access to “Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life,” a sculpture work where people walk through and play with clouds made from soap bubbles.

After 38 years in Wynwood, the original Jamaican restaurant Clive’s Cafe closed in 2013 when the area was redeveloped. Later that year, Clive’s reopened about two miles away in Little Haiti. The no-frills restaurant is known for dishes like curry goat ($12.50), jerk chicken ($11.99) and oxtail ($25). For a different take on the Caribbean, the chef Niven Patel runs Mamey Miami, a restaurant in Coral Gables inspired by his travels throughout Asia, Polynesia and the Caribbean, as well as his Indian background. From the Key West shrimp tacos, which have shells made with malanga, a Caribbean root vegetable ($16); to the Jamaican short rib empanadas ($14); to a ceviche made with the creamiest coconut leche de tigre ($18), these are some of the most flavorful bites in Miami.

Since 1982, Books & Books has filled a gap in Miami for an independent bookstore, eventually opening up locations throughout the county. In its flagship Coral Gables location, in a 1927 building on the city’s list of historic places, you can grab a glass of wine at the outdoor patio area or sit in the cafe with a dirty chai ($5) and a pile of books until 11 p.m. There are abundant titles here reflective of the regional culture with a large selection in Spanish, as well as books by local authors, on Florida history and immigrant communities, and cookbooks that represent the area’s wide range of cuisines.

From a tiny space in Little Havana, Sanguich makes the city’s best Cuban sandwiches where practically each ingredient, including the roasted pork, brined ham, pickles, bread and mustard, are all made in-house. The restaurant, which has limited indoor seating, serves the tastiest versions of the classics like the Cubano ($12.49), the pan con lechon with glistening shredded pork ($10.99) and the media noche, similar to a Cubano but on a sweet bread ($10.29). You can even order off the “secret menu”: Ask for the sweet and salty Elena Ruz sandwich (named after the Cuban socialite who invented it), made with their sweet media noche bread, guava marmalade, cream cheese, turkey and bacon ($11.50).

Can you really see Miami and the Everglades National Park all in one weekend? From Little Havana, it only takes 35 to 45 minutes at this time of day to reach the edge of the Florida swamp, where you can hop on a short boat tour and see alligators at home in the 1.5-million-acre wetlands, which is shrinking and facing an existential crisis. Coopertown: the Original Airboat Tour has been taking visitors out on the water for more than 60 years. During the 40-minute tour ($25.95), the guide will make occasional stops to talk about the park, warn people not to touch the saw grass (you can get a gnarly cut) or point out alligators and great blue herons by the water. Bring a hat, sunglasses and sunscreen.