Move over South Beach. After decades of surrendering our tourist dollars to the restored Art Deco zingers huddled together at the southernmost tip of Miami Beach, the scene has officially migrated to the island’s mid-section and beyond. Here you’ll find boutique accommodations rubbing shoulders with futuristic hostels and five-star properties far away from the hassle and excesses of South Beach’s noisy center. Check out these five Miami Beach hotels we love…
Related: The Sunshine State’s most scenic drives.
Feel fancy at The Betsy Hotel
The Betsy Hotel
61, those magic digits are why we love the Betsy. We’re referring to the number of rooms at this newish boutique hotel. The Betsy’s relatively diminutive size offers the kind of intimacy we crave, especially in a city where upscale lodgings often herd in hundreds of beach-bound visitors at once. The Betsy, meanwhile, throws its arms around its guests in the forms of sweeping ocean views, rooms as bright and cheerful as a beam of sunshine, and a commitment to sustainability. The intimate and masculine lobby bar, meanwhile, is the kind of place we’d expect to find James Bond—that is if M put him on a mandatory Florida sabbatical.
Bunk with your friends at the Freehand Hotel | Photo courtesy of Adrian Gaut
Freehand
It’s about time hostels shed their image as barely passable accommodations where young backpackers willingly throw down a few bucks in exchange for sharing a bunk with a Danish runaway and the Freehand in Miami—and also Chicago—is among the many lodgings leading the charge. We dig its Art Deco facade, breezy and beautiful shared and private rooms, airy and eclectic onsite restaurant 27, happening saloon the Broken Shaker, an ebullient pool scene, and location just steps from the beach. All this plus no piggy banks need be smashed to afford a room. The Freehand makes us wish we were 23 again—and that’s saying a lot!
Related: You’ll also want to see these 5 incredible mid-century modern hotels.
Brunch at the Traymore Restaurant in the Metropolitan by COMO hotel
Metropolitan by COMO
Flanked by Lake Pancoast on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, we’re clapping our hands in earnest at this 74-room boutique hotel for its excellent customer service and distinctive hotel design. With a little bit of Hollywood Regency flowing throughout, visitors can look forward to guestrooms that are simple and understated but possess flashes of color and glamor andare outfitted with completely modern furnishings that offer just the right amount of hat tip to the 20s and 30s. Elsewhere, there is restaurant Traymore, rooftop views of the Intracoastal Waterway and easy access to energetic Lincoln Road.
Get inspired at the Thompson Hotel
The Confidante
This mini-chain of luxury boutique hotels has been crushing it lately—see their outposts in Toronto and Chicago for proof—, but we love that the Confidante Miami is distinctly of the Sunshine State. Housed in a restored 1940s Art Deco tower, it boasts guestrooms with clean and efficient mid-century furnishings coupled with exuberant mod patterns and bright bursts of color everywhere. Add to it unobstructed ocean views, two swimming pools and restaurant Seagrape and a quiet location away from the hustle and muscle of South Beach and you have a compelling reason to never ever leave.
Related: 15 things never to say to a Miamian.
Mellow yellow at the Vintro Hotel
Vintro Hotel
The Vintro joins the lodging trend of moving away from South Beach central to its less frenetic fringes. each guestroom is like bedding down for the night in the belly of the sun. Rooms are painted in exuberant yellow tones and are outfitted with ebullient pop art, voyeur showers and hardwood floors to compliment the deceptively simple mod furnishings. Meanwhile, casual chic charms abound at the hotel’s library nook, in the sublimely sexy Scorpion Bar and along the inviting rooftop where sunset views rule.
