Miami Beach, FL | Dacrons Florida Travel Guide

Miami Beach, FL Travel

Eric: Let’s first review the impression I had of Miami after all the marketing that was targeted at me up till now. Miami Vice – Hip people dressed in bright colors doing drugs and shooting each other. All those “visit Miami” TV promos with shots of palm trees, sunsets, happy people jumping around on the beach, all washed over with over saturated colors. OK, looks like my kind of place.

So what did the impression I got of the place? I now realize that I’m one of those people standing outside of the gate holding a camera. If you’ve got money, then I’m sure you don’t have to be bothered with looking at any unwashed people. If you stand in the right spots, frame your view with a couple of palm trees, it starts to look like what I imagined. Better yet, if you live deep amongst your wealthy peers, I bet you can look in any direction and feel good about where you live.

Lemme clarify something – I’m not crying ‘sour grapes’ just because I don’t have a boat load of money at this point. I’ll certainly toss up a gate around my house once I get the money, and I’ll hire an immigrant to do it. Or better yet, have enough land between me and the gate so I don’t have to see it.

If you have the money, then Miami is a great place to go. If you just climbed off a raft from Cuba, I’m sure it’s gonna suck. So there.

On The Road With The Dacrons - Miami Beach, FL

Velma: Well, most of Miami was seen throught our rental car's windows--hence the skewed photo angles. I would have liked to walk around South Beach and check out all the Art Deco hotels, but we only had 2 days in the city. Every large city, of course, has different socio-economic neighborhoods, but the lines seem to be more sharply drawn in Miami. At one end of the spectrum is Coral Gables and gated man-made islands like Palm & Hibiscus; while at the other are places like Opa-Locka and Liberty City.

I found these interesting travel tips online:

"don't wear flashy jewelery and go around renting Mercedez Benz and BMW's, your going to get rubbed and most likely stabbed to death"
I stay away from the city and it's events when it's Memorial Weekend, Labor Day and the Hip Hop Conference. Every single year for the past 4-5 years there has been shootings and killings. These are not locals, it's the tourist themselves.
If you don't want to get robbed, don't wear a rolex to the beach. Flashy jewelry- real or fake + bright red tan = easy target.
south beach is sketchy prostitution drugs gangs homless all over but its not nearly as bad as the rest of Miami.I would strongly recomend staying in the touristy area of south beach and not wounder off in the rest of Miami if you value your life.
Any tourists that wanders off and gets lost in areas like those will most likely go back home in body bags.
My Husband was in Miami on business.I was told by authorities that He was in Miami for not even an hour when he was robbed and shot to death.Parts of his body were found two weeks later behind an abandoned warehouse in a dufflebag.
My parents where shot and killed in Miami. I will never walk again.

Of course, we weren't "rubbed" or stuffed into duffel bags...