Weekend Guides for the Curious Traveler
Miami

You’re in the tropics, so eat like it. It's on the southern edge of the Miami metro area, near where farmland gives way to swamp, but Robert Is Here is worth the morning trek. At this exotic fruit stand (a recent trip netted mamey sapote, guanabana, sapodilla, and rambutan), you can chat with Robert Moehling himself while he cuts your breakfast, then grab a milkshake and some fried peanuts. Walk through to the backyard for a tropical feast beside a menagerie including goats, emus, and tortoises.

The way back up into the city will take you directly to a glorious testament to the power of pulleys, leverage, and time. Coral Castle was built, single-handedly, by the Latvian immigrant Ed Leedskalnin in the 1920s and ‘30s. It is, as the name would suggest, a gated, walled castle made entirely of giant blocks of Miami limestone. An enclosed, two-story tower sits in one corner, opposite a throne room. There’s a Moon Fountain, a table shaped like Florida, two dozen rocking chairs, and much more in the compound—all mined, carved, and set in place by Leedskalnin himself. This is one roadside attraction that has the capacity to surprise and amaze.

There are five nonprofit National Tropical Botanical Gardens in the United States, and all are in Hawaii—except the Kampong. Further along the path back into Miami proper, 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. Don’t forget to explore the house and admire the Garuda sculpture, spectacularly carved from the stump and rootstock of a lychee tree. Call ahead to make an appointment.

A short drive north will bring you to El Carajo—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 fill up your tank and 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. By the way, “carajo” translates as the crow’s nest on a Spanish galleon or one of those useful, versatile curse words for when you stub your toe or want to tell someone to take a hike.

Get a little rest before wandering around the heart of Cuban America. There are hats and guayaberas and cigars and old men playing dominoes, as well as the kitschy majesty of Versailles Restaurant. But we recommend El Rey de Las Fritas for dinner, a mildly psychedelic diner experience involving Cuban burgers called fritas—heavily seasoned, smashed, and topped with shoestring fries, on a soft Cuban roll. With the money you save, grab a cocktail and hear some live music down the street at Ball & Chain.

Miami’s sprawling, low-slung, shade-averse neighborhoods aren’t so pedestrian-friendly, but Little Haiti is worth a quick 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 seems heavy for a tropical climate, but it’s a true product of the tropics. 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 are 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, but not Carrie Miller’s: “THE BODY OF CARRIE BARRETT MILLER WAS MOULDED IN THIS SOLID BLOCK OF CONCRETE—DECEMBER 4TH.1926. AFTER THE BODY HAS GONE TO DUST HER SLEEPING FORM WILL REMAIN.” It’s not a large graveyard, so you can see the entirety of it in an hour or so, but it’s worth lingering over its little narratives of neglect and decay.

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. The game is played just three times a week now, and the weekend matinees are attended by only a dozen dedicated bettors. Don’t be afraid to place some small bets at the kiosks outside. Rooting for #3 makes it even more exciting, and you don’t need to understand it to enjoy it.

At the end of the long parking lot of Crandon Park on Key Biscayne, past the public beach, is another piece of Miami history, a little-visited corner of the park that used to be a zoo—until August 1980, when it became clear that a hurricane-prone beach wasn’t a good spot for a collection of wild animals. But the remains are there: broad paths, lots of gator-friendly water features, and the ruins of enclosures, both expansive and claustrophobic. It’s also full of peacocks, wading birds, and more invasive iguanas than you can count. On the way back to the mainland, pull off at the city’s most iconic ruin, graffiti-covered Miami Marine Stadium, a seaside symphony of weak concrete, brutalism, and chain-link fences.

In this arts and shopping district, recently manufactured whole-cloth from a forgotten industrial area, Wynwood Walls is the primary attraction, an outdoor gallery of glaringly bright street art. Explore a little more and you’ll find a massive taxidermy, bone, and stone store called Art by God. But it’s the diversity of food here that really shines. There’s a lot just for food trucks, and a couple of hours can get you Japanese-Peruvian ceviche, chicharrones, and Mongolian duck wings.