Lonely Planet Florida

Overview of Miami

Little known: the eighth day, God shook all the eccentrics of America in the pocket of the nation's southeast. And they became South Florida. And it was weird.

Here's how it works: cruising on I-95 Corridor Northeast and at one point, near Richmond, you cross the invisible line that separates North and South. Now go away, all the way to the tip of America. Somewhere around Orlando, you've crossed another line, separating the rest of Florida from reality. Here in Miami, the Everglades and the Keys, things are a little Alice in Wonderland in sweat. This time, you know, all the moisture and everyone driving a little crazy hurricanes. And alligators. And mosquitoes, damn. And the people, of course.

What was once an agricultural town of citrus is now a Pan-American Mosaic, the largest city in Latin, in northern Mexico in the world. Add to this enterprising immigrants from the Caribbean, Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their children, a fantabulous gay party scene, crazy rednecks, the white of the clothes the dinosaur age cruise local waterways, and a scene of Celebrity South Beach would make OK! Wee magazine itself in joy, and, well ... Look guys: it's weird here. And beautiful. Consider these sleek degreasing Deco hotels of Miami Beach. The incredibly sexy people in line at a club in Fort Lauderdale. This love full moon to light the Everglades on a damp night in a sweat.

Airport Car Rental Miami

Which is not to say modern Miami has no problems. This city has both the joyful energy and hungry of the Third World on the Caribbean and Latin America. Economic inequality is pervasive and great spirit of American capitalism mixed with the Miami Latin / Mediterranean flair, making the gap between the haves and have-nots here seems particularly wide.

But this glittering mirage of wealth and sex is also what makes this city so nice and fast. "The World is Yours" was the slogan emblematic of Scarface, a film that has captured the highs and lows of 1980 hyperextravagant Miami, and the citizens of this city have taken this motto to heart.

West of here is the Everglades, perhaps the most unique ecosystem in North America, a flooded wetland that resembles the kind of musty own belly. To the north, Fort Lauderdale, sipping a Martini in its fleet of yachts. In the south lie the mangrove islands and sandbanks burning in the Florida Keys, the islands of both exile and refuge for non-conformists who are too out there for the same mentality misfit South Florida.

Sounds good? Go down. The air smells like a kiss of silk and the beach feels like a lotion and hormones. Welcome to Miami. The festival began five minutes ago. You're going to dance?

History

Do not worry: the Miami visit you today will be gone when you return.

It is a city built on boom and bust, by dreamers who have enjoyed the good weather and opportunists who took advantage of natural disasters. Each chapter in the saga of this city is closed by a hurricane, the building boom or a riot, and when the dust settles a new Miami remains hot on the beach. This growth rate ironically jerky, considering it took about 400 years for Miami to become a city (from Ponce de Leon missed the fountain of youth). But when the city decided to go together, he has played catch-up with a vengeance.

In some ways, the history of Greater Miami is a classic tale of American travel, entrepreneurship, and hopes of refugees desperate for innovation. But do not forget notes: corruption, negligence, and heavy - and sometimes bloody - divisions of the community. The final product is just perfect. But it is also constantly RESU.