South East Florida

The glamour capital of Florida, the South East coast of the state is where you will find the party people and places. From the luxury of Palm beach and Boca Rotan, to the Spring Break wildness of Fort Lauderdale to the glittering stars of Miami, South East Florida offers the beautiful people a chance to strut their stuff all year round.

With top-notch beaches, hotels and eateries, Palm Beach offers a taste of the luxury lifestyle for the jet-set. From the excitement of polo fields to the laid-back glamour of Boca Rotan, one of the main attractions of Palm Beach is simply to drive around gazing at the mansions of the rich and famous.

Fort Lauderdale is a famous party town for a different reason. The centre of the annual Spring Break vacations for college students, the town has a great beach and lively nightlife.

Vibrant and charged with the energy of Caribbean rhythms, Miami means big-city sophistication and seductive beaches to those who plug into its unique brand of electric charge. A railroad into the old Indian trading post started Miami down its path as Florida’s most dynamic city and a few works of modern engineering made Miami Beach a sudden hotspot of the 1920s. With a colourful arts scene, world-class shopping, watersports splendour, professional sports and a load of family attractions, Miami makes one of the nation’s most well-rounded metropolitan destinations.

The greatest influence upon the city’s modern-day personality came with the influx of Cuban refugees that began in the 1960s. They settled in an area dubbed Little Havana, where salsa music blares, men play dominoes in the park and breezes carry strong whiffs of café con leche. Miami’s overall cuisine and arts scene sway Cuban, blended with other local Caribbean influence. Floribbean cooking, a Miami invention, fuses Florida and island technique and products into one of the most popular styles to have hit in many decades.

The majority of celebrities live on islands along MacArthur Causeway, which leads to South Beach, a.k.a. SoBe, Miami’s acclaimed district for naughty and nice. Two family attractions – Parrot Jungle Island and Miami Children’s Museum – have also moved along the bridge’s causeway in the vicinity of Miami’s busy cruise ship port. Ocean Drive, SoBe’s much-photographed street, faces a wide, bustling beach and is lined with its historic Art Deco gems. Intimate, chic hotels have taken up in the jauntily painted masterpieces, their lively cafés spilling onto the sidewalk with hip clientele, wannabe fashion model servers, and Latin tunes. A block off Ocean, all-night clubs and drag bars pick up the tempo. Edgy art galleries and museums, chi-chi restaurants, and the most design-forward of restored hotels contribute to SoBe’s reputation as it follows Collins Avenue along Miami Beach’s Golden Mile and to the newly fashionable neighbourhoods of North Miami Beach, Sunny Isles and, on the mainland, Aventura. Haulover Park offers scores of recreation and chic hotels, spas and golf resorts accommodate in style.