Real Miami for Tourists: Skip South Beach, Go to Hialeah

If you’re a tourist looking for the real Miami, I have bad news for you. You’re probably staying in the wrong place. Everybody flies in, checks into a hotel on Ocean Drive, takes a picture with a yard-long drink and goes home thinking they saw Miami. You didn’t. You saw other tourists. So here’s my guide to the real Miami for tourists, from somebody who’s lived in pretty much every part of it, including four years in Miami Beach that I’m still recovering from.

01Why South Beach Is Not the Real Miami

I lived in Miami Beach for four years. Everybody back then was like, “Oh Manny, you must be hooking up with so many beautiful women in Miami Beach.” Look, man, to be honest with you, the parking situation in Miami Beach is so bad that by the time a girl finds parking, she doesn’t even want to hook up with you anymore. She’s tired. She’s got work in the morning. She’s driving up and down Collins and every sign says Residential Parking Only, Freight Loading Only, Passenger Loading Only. Eventually she just calls you. “Forget it, Manny, I’m going home. Who told you to get an apartment in Miami Beach? I don’t care how nice your bachelor pad is.”

And Ocean Drive was always the place you went if you didn’t know what was good in Miami. Think about it. There are no real bars on Ocean Drive. If you’re looking for a good bar in South Beach, the only thing that counts as one is the hotel bar. And who are you going to meet at the hotel bar? Other tourists. You came all the way to Miami to have a drink with a guy from Ohio. You could’ve done that in Ohio.

That was the saddest part about living there. Every time I made a friend in Miami Beach, two weeks later I lost them, because they had to go back to wherever they came from. And then there’s valet. You’ll see a line of cars waiting for valet on a Saturday night. To valet park and go where? If there’s nowhere good to go, why am I giving you my keys? South Beach is beautiful, the beach is great, and I’ll defend the Art Deco buildings all day. But it’s not the real Miami. It’s the Miami on the postcard.

02Hialeah Is the Real Miami for Tourists

If you’re a tourist and you want to go to one place that really represents this city, it has to be Hialeah. Because everybody in Miami ends up in Hialeah one way or another. Hialeah is the go-to place for running errands. If you need to do maintenance on your car and you go anywhere other than Hialeah, you’re getting ripped off. That’s just a fact. Hialeah has four auto shops on the same block. Four! And they’re all busy.

Hialeah still looks like it’s in the 1970s, and I mean that as a compliment. When you drive around, you’ll quickly notice there’s a thriving economy that nobody can explain. There are guys picking branches up off the ground and putting them in their truck, and I’m like, somebody is paying that man to pick up branches. And it’s always the same truck. An old-school red pickup. That’s the number one vehicle in Hialeah. The Hialeah flag should have a red truck on it. And every once in a while that guy finds a mango on the ground. That’s a job with benefits.

And it doesn’t matter who you are. You could be a rich person living in a tower in Sunny Isles, you still have to go to Hialeah at least once a month. For a car thing. For a dry cleaner with better prices. For Cuban food that hasn’t been “elevated.” If you want to see Miami with no filter, park in Hialeah, get a cafecito from the first ventanita you see, and just watch. Everything you need to know about this city is going to walk by you in thirty minutes.

03Calle Ocho, Dolphin Mall and Doral

Calle Ocho is a little touristy, but it’s still worth it, and here’s why. You do get in touch with the Cuban culture. And you get in touch with the locals, who are going to give you mean looks. That’s part of the experience. You’re walking down Eighth Street with your family going, “Oh, we’re taking in the culture, guys,” and you look up, and there’s one older man sitting outside with a cigarette staring at you like you owe him money. He doesn’t want you there. And that’s how you know it’s authentic. Calle Ocho is not Hialeah, but it’s the closest thing a tourist can walk to without a car.

If you want a sample of all of Miami in one building, go to the Dolphin Mall. I really think the Dolphin Mall is the best place to take in Miami culture. Everybody’s there. Every language, every family, every abuela with a shopping cart. The funny thing is there’s never anything worth buying, because it’s mostly outlets. They don’t put the real stuff in Dolphin Mall. In SoHo in New York you get the latest fashion. At Dolphin Mall you get what they couldn’t sell last year. An old Calvin Klein shirt with a tag that says “stretch fit.” It’s not stretch fit, bro. Somebody else already stretched it out. Two for fifty. But you’re not there to shop. You’re there to people-watch.

And then there’s Doral, which is basically Little Venezuela with a lot of banks. You want an arepa at 11 PM? Doral. You want to hear a guy on his phone in the parking lot talking about a deal that sounds illegal but probably isn’t? Doral. It’s a whole country in a few square miles, and it’s one of the best food stops in the county.

04Miami Is Mixed, but Everybody Stays in Their Lane

Here’s the thing nobody tells tourists. Sampling the real Miami is hard, because even though there are so many cultures here, we’re all separated. In New York, everybody’s on the subway together. An Indian guy, an Afghan guy, a British guy and a girl from North Carolina, all on the same train, sharing the same armrest. In Miami? Little Haiti is over there. The Venezuelans are in Doral. The Cubans are in Hialeah. The rich people are in Brickell and Sunny Isles. Miami Beach is the tourists. And everybody stays in their lane. Nobody mixes around here. We frown upon it.

Miami’s the kind of place where everybody wants to come here, but nobody wants to hang out with each other. That’s why a tourist has to move around. Don’t stay in one zip code. Rent a car, accept that you’re going to sit on the Palmetto for a while, and hit at least three neighborhoods. A morning in Hialeah, an afternoon at the Dolphin Mall, a night in Doral, and then, fine, go see the beach before you fly out. You earned it.

And one last tip. Go to a Flanagan’s. Any Flanagan’s, but especially the one in Hialeah. Wings, a cold beer and a table full of Miami people yelling at a TV. If you leave Miami without doing that, you didn’t really visit. You just had a layover with a tan.