Travel Guide to Miami

We decided to go down to Miami for our second wedding anniversary and spend some time sightseeing while also taking some time to relax. We stayed close to the beach at Circa 39 Hotel, which you can read all about, here. Some days we went all over town and others we just stayed by the pool or binge-watched Shark Tank. I’d say we had a pretty good balance with everything. Here are some of the places we visited and (of course) some of the delicious food we had!

Friday

We got to the hotel around 10 am. Needless to say, with only getting 2 hours of sleep before leaving for the airport, by this point we were exhausted and hungry. After dropping our stuff off in the room, we went down to the lobby and had the American Breakfast at Jules Kitchen. About 90% of the time I’ll remember to take a picture of my food, but this time I was so ready to devour every bite that I forgot. Plus, it wasn’t anything special and we were actually kind of disappointed by the quality of it. :/

We spent the rest of the day at the beach, the hotel pool, and ordered Shake Shack for dinner through Postmates. After dinner, I really tried to have an agenda for the next couple of days. I was kind of down that we didn’t immediately go out and start seeing places. I had imagined checking off a bunch of “must-see” locations on my list, especially having arrived in the morning with pretty much the whole day ahead of us. That’s not really how travel days work though. We ended up taking a 3-hour nap after breakfast and still felt tired after.

Although I tried my best to plan our trip out day-by-day and fit in as many places as I could, you never really know what you’ll feel like doing until you’re there. Thankfully, I had a long list of recommendations from my friend Gianna (@_republicofg) who currently lives in Miami. Based on her list, I made note of my top choices. The only thing left at this point was to plan out our Uber/Lyft trips and try not to spend a fortune on rides.

After coming to terms with how much we would either walk or spend on rides, I saw an advertisement for the Big Bus Tours. 🙌🏼

The tour was available on the days we would be there and included stops at Bayside Marketplace, Soundscape Park, RIU Hotel, Wynwood Walls, and Little Havana / Domino Park. Different ticket options included a level of perks. We went with the Premium Ticket which included the tour for 2 days (I HIGHLY recommend this option as it is impossible to go to all the stops in one day before the last pick-up time), pre-recorded commentary, and Millionaire’s Row Boat Cruise.

For each stop, we had the option to hop off the bus. If we did so, another bus would be by for pick-up about an hour later. I think there were either 2 or 3 buses in circulation. And if you’re curious, the total for each ticket was $47.20 per adult.

Saturday

The closest stop from Circa 39 for the Big Bus Tour was about a 7-minute walk to the RIU Hotel. We got picked up around 10:45 AM and made our way to Wynwood Walls. For this first ride, we sat on the rooftop of the bus which was nice when going on the highway, but brutal when idle in traffic with the sun beating down on us.

Wynwood Walls

Our first stop here was for food. Per Gianna’s recommendation, we went to Coyo Taco and it was SO GOOD. We ordered 2 tacos al pastor, 2 tacos carne asada, 2 bloody orange margaritas, and some churros.

This was really hands down a highlight of the trip. I probably sound dramatic, but when it comes to food I’m all for everything Coyo Taco had to offer!

After this, we walked around and went into random little shops. We missed the bus for our next stop, so we had an extra amount of time to explore this side of town. If you’re wondering, it was my fault we missed the bus. 😁

Little Havana

By the time we arrived at Little Havana, we were pretty tired from the heat and walking. We waited a while at the bus stop for the next bus to take us here which really made me regret not listening to David and accidentally missing the first bus. 👀

I imagined the area much bigger but based on where the bus dropped us off, it was mainly a really long street with lots to offer. We walked into a few different souvenir shops, got a cute magnet for our travel collection, and took pictures with a couple of parrots!!! I’m not usually one to pose with animals, but they were friendly and their colors were so vibrant. Had it been a snake or any sort of reptile, you could count me out. 🤣

This was the end of our tour for that day because at this point it was close to 3:30 PM which was the last pick-up time. Thankfully, the driver still picked us up and took us all the way to the RIU Hotel stop. With traffic and all the stops, it took about 2 hours to get back to the hotel.

The day wasn’t over yet, so we headed down to the beach. It was a bit disappointing to see the huge amount of seaweed on the shore. Anytime I see Miami Beach pictures, they’re usually with bright blue waters and clear sands, but not this time.

Sunday

Bayside Marketplace

This was the last day of the Big Bus Tour. When we arrived at Bayside Marketplace, we went straight to check-in for the Millionaires Row Boat Cruise per the driver’s recommendation. While we waited for boarding to begin, we got a Mangonada at Mango King. Similar to Coyo Taco, these bring me life.

Honestly, I was expecting to see Shakira’s house on this boat tour, but that didn’t happen. We did, however, see JLo’s rental house, Ricky Martin’s previous mansion, and lots of others. It was really interesting learning the history of not just the homes, but the area as well.

By the time the boat tour was over, there was barely enough time to walk around the rest of the area because the bus was close to leaving. Instead of going through with our reservation at Chili’s, we stopped by a hotdog stand for a quick bite. I really would have wanted to stay in the area longer, but the boat tour took up most of our time. There seemed to be a lot of both vendor-type shops and big-name retailers, plus plenty of food.

Soundscape Park

I’ll start off by mentioning this- the Miami Beach area has a FREE TROLLEY SERVICE. We had no idea about this, so when we got dropped off at the end of the day in Soundscape Park by the Big Bus Tours bus, we had in mind that we would be walking back to the hotel since it was sort of a straight shot up north. We had no idea how far the walk was (about 45 minutes) or how tired we would be when it came time to go back.

The whole reason we even made the stop here was that A) it was the last stop of the tour we hadn’t made and B) I saw a really cool place on Instagram called Time Out Market that I wanted to try. This was only a five-minute walk from the bus drop-off so we went straight there.

Time Out Market was the only place we visited in the area that day. It was 100% worth it with all the drink, food, and dessert options they had inside. Plus, they had the cutest floral wall by the entrance!

The inside layout was that of a, well, market! Food options included burgers, pizza, Mediterranean, vegan, and a few others that were closed at the time. But first, we got a couple of drinks from the bar area.

For food, I got pizza (what’s new) and David got a burger. The pizza was about $4 and the burger was about $15. According to David, the burger was overpriced for what it was, plus it didn’t come with any sides or a drink. My slice of pizza was definitely worth it though! I also couldn’t leave without grabbing some ice cream from Azucar.

We were here for about 2 hours and by the time we decided to leave, I had about 10 bandaids on both my feet from all the blisters and scratches I was getting from my poor choice of shoes. I won’t be choosing style over comfort next time!

We tried looking for scooters to ride back, but we didn’t see any insight so we started our walk back. We could’ve ordered a ride, but with all the traffic it would’ve taken the same amount of time to get back if not longer. I also felt like we had spent enough money on the trip so far and wanted to avoid spending another $25. Needless to say, by the time we got back I could barely walk an inch further and I was in a completely bad mood. 😬

Monday

Since this was Memorial Day, we didn’t want to be out and about too much. We figured the beach would be crowded and didn’t even bother to go look. Instead, we slept in and went for brunch at The Tavern.

The food was pretty good, but it took about an hour to get which is wayyyyy too long in my opinion.

After brunch, we watched Shark Tank for a while and I got a pretty bad migraine so the rest of the day was spent icing my head and trying to not make it worse. :/

Tuesday

This was the day of our actual anniversary so we made reservations at a waterside restaurant for breakfast called The Lido Bayside Grill. The view from our table was beautiful and the food was even better.

From here, we took a Lyft to Big Pink and then walked around South Beach. It started raining a couple of times while we were walking which reminded us of our wedding day when it started hailing during our photos.

Of all the days, this was our most spontaneous day. We really had no idea where to go or where we’d end up. After having a mini photoshoot here, we decided to look for some t-shirt stores, which you’ll find plenty of in Miami. Anytime I travel somewhere, I always HAVE to get at least one t-shirt. I ended up with 5 from this trip. ☺️

After the t-shirt shopping, we walked over to a beachside bar sit-down area where we ordered a GIANT mojito. We knew we were crazy, but after about 30 minutes we were able to finish it all. That’s teamwork. 💪🏼

This was pretty much the end of our day and the overall trip. Once we got back to the hotel, we ordered Little Caesars (my absolute favorite) and watched some more Shark Tank. All that was left was to pack up and head out the next day.

And yes, this time we took the trolley back to the hotel.

The Cost

The purpose of our trip was to celebrate our second wedding anniversary so we wanted to go somewhere on the beach to relax and have fun, but we didn’t want the guilt that comes along after overspending on a trip. We knew we would spend most of our time outside of the hotel exploring Miami so we also budgeted for that. 

If you’re curious about how much a trip like this costs, here are the details! For reference, we left home on a Friday and returned on a Wednesday. Since different days of the week can affect travel prices, it’s also important to note we went during Memorial Day weekend.

The Costco Travel package we purchased came out to under $2,200, including roundtrip flights for David and me, the 5-night hotel stay, and transportation to/from the hotel. 

Before this trip, we had only vacationed at all-inclusive resorts so we weren’t sure how much we’d be spending additionally, especially on food and drinks. During our whole trip, I took note of everywhere we went and how much we spent at each place. Between eating out, convenience store runs for snacks and drinks, tips, the Big Bus Tour, souvenirs (a magnet and some t-shirts), and 2 Lyft rides, we spent around $850 during our 5-day trip, making our grand total about $3,000.