Best Things to Do in Miami

Miami's sights split across the bay: the beach and the Deco on the island, nearly everything else on the mainland. The list runs roughly in order of priority, but plan your days by side of the bay, because crossing the causeways twice in one day eats the afternoon.

1. South Beach. Wide white sand, pastel lifeguard towers and warm water. Go early in the morning, when the light is soft and the beach is almost empty. See our South Beach guide.
2. The Art Deco District. Around 800 buildings from the 1930s and 1940s, with neon signs, porthole windows and ice-cream colours, best seen on a walking tour from the Art Deco Welcome Center on Ocean Drive.
3. Little Havana. Calle Ocho, dominoes in Máximo Gómez Park, cigar rollers and Cuban coffee from street windows. Our Little Havana guide has a route.
4. Wynwood Walls. An outdoor gallery of huge murals by artists from around the world, in a former warehouse district. The Walls themselves are ticketed. The surrounding streets are covered in free street art.
5. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. An Italian Renaissance-style villa on Biscayne Bay, built for an industrialist in the 1910s, with formal gardens and a stone barge in the water. Parts are closed for conservation work, so check what's open.
6. The Everglades. The vast subtropical wetland on Miami's doorstep. Take the tram tour at Shark Valley to see alligators, turtles and wading birds. See our day trips guide.
7. Pérez Art Museum Miami. A modern art museum on the bay in Downtown, with hanging gardens on its terraces, Latin American and Caribbean art and a view across to the port.
8. The Design District. Luxury shops, public art and the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is free with a timed ticket. Pair it with Wynwood.
9. Key Biscayne. An island south of the city with quieter beaches, and at its tip, the Cape Florida lighthouse in Bill Baggs State Park.
10. Coconut Grove. Miami's oldest neighbourhood, with shady streets and bayside marinas. Pair it with Vizcaya next door rather than making a separate trip.
11. Coral Gables. A 1920s planned city of Mediterranean-style villas, with the Biltmore Hotel and the Venetian Pool, a public swimming pool carved from a coral rock quarry.
12. A sunset on the bay. From South Pointe Park at the tip of South Beach, watching the cruise ships leave, or from a rooftop bar in Brickell.

What we'd skip: eating on Ocean Drive, where oversized cocktails and pushy hosts come at a steep price, and the celebrity-home boat tours, which show you mostly hedges and fences.