South Beach

South Beach is America's most glamorous beach — the southern tip of Miami Beach island, where a 1.5-mile crescent of brilliant white sand meets the most architecturally distinctive and visually dazzling beach backdrop in the United States. The Art Deco Historic District, running along Ocean Drive directly behind the sand, preserves over 800 buildings in the world's largest collection of 1930s Art Deco architecture, painted in the pastel pinks, whites, and teals that have become the colour signature of Miami Beach worldwide.

The water at South Beach is genuinely extraordinary — a vivid emerald-turquoise Atlantic that owes its colour to the shallow, sandy bottom and the clarity of the Gulf Stream-warmed offshore current. The beach is protected by offshore sandbars and the geometry of the Florida Straits, producing relatively calm conditions for swimming, though afternoon offshore breezes create good conditions for kitesurfing and paddleboarding in the southern sections. Professional Miami Beach Ocean Rescue lifeguards patrol the entire 1.5 miles in distinctive red-yellow towers.

The experience of South Beach is inseparable from the architecture, the nightlife, and the restaurant scene concentrated along Ocean Drive, Collins Avenue, and Lincoln Road. The beachfront promenade is one of the world's great people-watching venues — a parade of visitors from every nation, fitness obsessives, street performers, and local characters that creates an atmosphere unlike any other beach in the US. Lummus Park, the wide grassy area between Ocean Drive and the sand, hosts beach volleyball courts, outdoor fitness areas, and the famous row of painted lifeguard stands that have become symbols of Miami Beach around the world.