Leave the beach behind and seek out exotic fruit, abandoned places, and secret gardens in the continental United States' only truly tropical city.
LessYou’re in the tropics, so eat like it. On the southern edge of the Miami metro area, near where farmland gives way to swamp, Robert Is Here offers a rotating selection of exotic fruit—mamey sapote, guanabana, sapodilla, rambutan, and more, depending on the season, and Robert Moehling himself may cut it up for you.
A glorious testament to the power of pulleys, leverage, and time, Coral Castle was built, single-handedly, by Latvian immigrant Ed Leedskalnin in the 1920s and 1930s. It is, as the name would suggest, a gated, walled castle made entirely of giant blocks of Miami limestone.
There are five nonprofit National Tropical Botanical Gardens in the United States, and all are in Hawaiʻi—except the Kampong. On a nondescript Coral Gables side street, you will find what was once the private residence of the horticulturalist David Fairchild. Today it's a narrow strip of lushness with banyans, a baobab, salt mangroves, a lotus pond, and perhaps the most peaceful, idyllic view of Biscayne Bay.
Gas station in the front, extensive wine selection in back. This service station first added wine, then a bakery counter, and is now an excellent tapas restaurant where you can still grab motor oil and a pack of gum. Try the red sangria with some chorizo, the white with ceviche, and a diet soda with a bag of Cheetos.
In Calle Ocho, the heart of Cuban America, this mildly psychedelic diner experience involves Cuban burgers called fritas—heavily seasoned, smashed, and topped with shoestring fries, on a soft Cuban roll.
Miami's Little Haiti is worth a wander, starting at the Cultural Center, which hosts Caribbean market days and a variety of art shows and dance performances. Check out Libreri Mapou (a Creole-French-English bookstore) next door or duck into an unusual botanica. If you’re there in the evening, swing by the city’s classic, rough-and-tumble punk bar, Churchill’s, and Sweat Records next door.
Haitian food is a true product of the tropics and hearty fuel for a day of wandering. At the sidewalk-side counter of Naomi’s, grab some legume with mayi moulen and picklies (that is, beef stew with cornmeal porridge and spicy slaw, vegan options available), and a passion fruit juice, then head to the airy backyard garden. The roosters and chickens scuttling around your feet make for good company.
This could be the most forgotten corner of Miami. Wedged between trendy Wynwood and downtown, this historic graveyard has Jewish, African-American, and veteran plots, as well as graves of some of the city’s early luminaries. Many of the headstones are cracked and crumbling, and some crypts have clearly been broken into and hastily patched.
Betting away an afternoon at the decrepit old jai alai fronton near the airport is an experience not to be missed. This lightning-fast sport with origins in Basque country remains popular in Latin America but can only be seen year-round in the United States in Miami. This site was once known as the Yankee Stadium of jai alai, but it’s just barely hanging on today.
Built in 1963, Miami Marine Stadium took advantage of a beautiful view of downtown and a passing speedboat trend, but now the world’s first boat racing stadium is an abandoned maze of vandalized cement. It's fenced off, but the brutalist architecture and graffiti are visible to admire.