What Miami is Great At (Kendall: real estate, month to, landscaping)

[Cubanchic]

Originally Posted by Travelassie

What I like especially about what you've said here is that it obviously comes from your heart. And it's so descriptive, it's easy to visualize exactly what you are talking about.

Speaking of birds, have you by any chance had any visits in your neighborhood from the blue and gold macaws we used to see flying overhead, and occasionally landing in our coconut palm and yellow poinciana trees in Palmetto Bay to help themselves to some goodies?

Actually we had recently, in the winter months, they stick around. Very loud but when we get a glimpse we just sit for what seams like hours watching them. I told Hubby that I need to place bird feeders around the yard since we get quite a few really off the normal trail around here.

[shadyzee]

Wow , i really thank you for this topic , full of great information's

[Pincho-toot]

I feel Ft. Lauderdale has more diversity than much of Miami. Yea downtown Miami and the beach areas are diverse, but much of the city is very segregated. By race, ethnicity and language. Diversity to me is more like London or Toronto.

Not big on the weather. Especially not humidity. I like actual seasons, and actual cold weather. I'd prefer LA's dry heat over this.

What I do like, is the ocean. I feel Florida in general is a vacation state, at least Orlando to the Keys. The beach is great, even though the water is a bit flat. It's a great place if you're into fishing and boating, which I do like, but I like other stuff as well, and where I plan to live in the future is great for that too. Also, can't complain about food as there's plenty of options, though still lacking in some regards.

Not big on the music scene here. Too rap/Latin/electronic oriented. Definitely don't like the materialistic culture surrounding the city. Oy vey!

It is one of the more LGBT friendly places in the south, (in the right areas) so that can be a plus for me. Though I feel the gay culture here is a bit shallow and more party oriented. I wanna settle down and get married eventually, and have my kids go to good schools.

I like Miami for vacation, for the beach and some of the cool nature areas around the ocean and by the Everglades.

Dislike it for the lack of leaves and snow. (Not just talking about autumn leaves, there's so many neighbourhoods here with NO trees except for a few palms here and there. My friend from Atlanta says Miami is like a desert in terms of trees) The shallowness and the sort of thug mentality many people have.

[Cubanchic]

Originally Posted by StarfishKey

What a beautiful list!

What kind of boat do you have? I want to start but I can't make up my mind which direction to go in - I can see advantages to all different types. The only thing I know is that given I am in the Keys, even if I go out to deeper water, it would probably be best to have one with a shallow draft so I can do plenty of local exploring before I go out further. I would love to hear more about your boating experiences!

You reminded me of things I forgot about that make Miami great. If I had family there, I'm sure I would have liked it better. I made some great friends whose families are also local, but we were all so busy working it was hard to hang out much - we ended up being on the phone more. If one is in a laid-back state of mind, and could afford either not to work, or not to work very hard, I think Miami would be a great place to live. But it's kind of stressful if you're always in a rush and trying to pinch pennies, a little more so I think than other places. But I can totally see why the rich and famous like to keep a home or two locally. And I am so pissed I miss the Asian Festival at the Fruit & Spice park every year! Something always comes up, lol!

We own a 28 foot Grady White, but we gradually got to that size via different boats and knowing what we liked best about boating. We loved fishing, diving and snorkeling so it had to be a open fisherman and we knew that we would like to make longer trips so it had to have a cabin. If you are first starting out I wouldn't really get any smaller then 18 foot boat. Depending on what you like to do consider the boat, a lot of folks that are in the keys have a flats boat which is fine on calm days but if you want to fish on the reef then you might want to consider a deeper hull. Also we always purchase our boats used because it allows us to get more bang for the buck.

Since you are right at the canal you might not need a truck to pull it out and if you do for servicing you can rent one at home depo.

We bang with a small 15 foor Boston whaler back when my oldest was three years old and then when to a 20 foot Dolphin open fisherman up to the last one.

Hope that helps, also do what we did and take a boating class for each member of the family that would be driving it.

[doggiebus]

Please stick to the topic of the thread, "What Miami is Great at" in your opinion. If you'd like to debate the good and bad things about Miami please start another thread for just that.

[WINTERFRONT]

Broward and Dade have both their own charms and it's a great thing they are both together, it's like they are complementing each other

Whatever you don't find in Dade may be found in Broward.

[Lo Maximo]

-Unparalleled access to the water. You can have great fishing, paddle boarding, kite-surfing, partying on a boat with skyscrapers in the background.

-An abundant supply of beautiful women (unparalleled in the US in my opinion) as long as you aren't hung up on natural blondes.

-Great weather during the night.

-Tropical horticulture and unique West Indian plant species.

[hurricaneMan1992]

There are not many major cities in the world--let along in the US--where you can live in a city with great shopping and decent dining and cultural activities, get by without owning a car if you want, and still be walking distance to the beach and bay for swimming, paddling, kayaking, and pretty much whatever water sport you could want to do (even surfing, at least a few days each year).

That said, I wish there were better access to the water, especially along the bay front and river front, and especially for people living in the vicinity and arriving on foot or on two non-motorized wheels. Imagine if the boat slip beside the AAA were set up as a protected swimming area similar to the lagoon at Matheson Hammock Park, and if there were a contiguous riverwalk/baywalk from the airport area to the mouth of the Miami River and up to the Design District, with public launch points for kayakers and paddlers.

[Winchupuata]

Originally Posted by Lo Maximo

-Unparalleled access to the water. You can have great fishing, paddle boarding, kite-surfing, partying on a boat with skyscrapers in the background.

-An abundant supply of beautiful women (unparalleled in the US in my opinion) as long as you aren't hung up on natural blondes.

These two are my favorite things about Miami. You just need to have money and time to enjoy them (which I don't unfortunately ).

[polothedon]

Originally Posted by StarfishKey

That seems so sad to me. Did you like it? Which one did you try? (Different beaches have different feels, they're not all the same and some may be better for individuals than others. Like for me, I go to the beach to relax, so I don't like to have a South Beach-type "scene" environment, and I don't like waves so rough they knock me down and drag me out to sea with the undertow (at least, not most of the time - once in a while watching waves crashing is really nice). So, going to Crandon in the middle of the week on a school day in the off season when no one is there is the best to me. But I like all the wildlife at Bahia Honda in the Keys, and I like watching South Beach from up on a friend's balcony because the colors are amazing. And there are days when I prefer the huge wide beaches with normal waves and dunes up North along the East Coast of FL, which are loaded with natural sand and not Bahamian stuff that has to be trucked in. It all depends...

it was south beach but man it was great, I honestly believe it was maybe because of the people who invited me, I could never go to the beach with my people, instead of having a good time I would probably be sitting down complaining that the beach is boring but the block is probably popping right now