Category Archives: North America

Magic City: Miami, USA

All Aboard for Miami

I boarded a flight from Heathrow to Miami International Airport and after 9 hours of squeezing into American Airline’s Economy seating, we arrived. My first impression in Miami Airport was all confusion.

All the staff were greeting me in Spanish. I wondered if there was another flight coming in from South America… why was everyone talking Spanish?!

Next, I was given a fright by the Immigration Officer. He told me I had lied and made false statements in my Visa Waiver application. I protested I hadn’t, but apparently I had already been approved entry before so shouldn’t have applied again. So I was double approved! That doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me… but they do get quite sensitive over these things round there. Well, after making me afraid he was going to turn me back around, he eventually let me in…

After then proceeding to get ripped off by the taxi driver, it wasn’t turning out to be a great first impression, and I was a little frazzled!

Once, I reached the hotel, I decided to reset and headed out for dinner… My modern hotel was located in downtown Miami and very close to the action. Miami has two key areas; downtown and Miami Beach. Miami Beach is on an island and accessible by bridge. In downtown, the harbour area is super lively and this is where we found Bayside Market, which is loaded with lines of restaurants, shops and excursion stands to satisfy the many tourists that visit. This is also the site of Pier 5, a famous fishing pier, that is now the dock for various sightseeing boats, yachts and a lively cocktail and music venue.

The drinks were flowing and many people were salsa dancing around, so the vibes were good. As we sat down in one of the many Latin restaurants for the well known Cuban sandwich that Miami offers, with so many spanish speakers around me, I decided it was time to investigate, what was up with all the spanish?

So it turns out, that Miami is actually the Latin capital of the United States, due to its close proximity to Cuba and Latin American countries. A huge immigration of Cubans to Miami began in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution, and over several decades, large groups of people from Columbia, Nicaragua and Guatemala continued to arrive in the city as conflicts rose within their own nations. There’s actually a lovely old building in the centre of downtown (and in front of my hotel) that was originally the arrivals location for immigrants as they arrived for processing into USA. So that is how Miami became the vibrant Latin hub that it is now. I was not expecting it at all, but it was a really pleasant surprise!

I only had a few days in Miami, and so time efficiency was very important. In order to see as much as possible, I decided to opt for the city sighteeing bus pass. There are several ‘Big Bus’ tours that work their way around the city, and a 24 hour pass worked well for me to see the main highlights. I did notice though that Miami did offer a lot of options for public transport, if you are doing one area at a time, there are free public trams, as well as a free metro line and some other low priced metros. It seems like a lot of investment has gone into public transport here which is brilliant. For me, I wanted to get the tour information too, so the bus tour gave me a chance to stick my headphones in and find out all I needed to know.

So with my bus ticket in hand, I hopped on board and made my way across a very windy bridge, with views of the harbour and over to Miami Beach. This is where I stopped off at the famous Ocean Drive and South Beach. Ocean Drive is a mile long strip of palm trees and art deco cafes and hotels. It has been used in many different TV shows and movies and does feel like you are being taken back in time, having just left the glitsy skyscapers of downtown. I walked along the street before detouring off to the side to check out the beach.

Strangely, I always imagined that the beach would be right in front of the pavement but there is actually a large area of park and bushes to the side before you can reach the beach, and then once on the beach its very wide, so unlike what I thought, its actually a little bit of hard work to get onto the beach. Naturally, in May, the day was very hot and I was looking forward to a good swim. Whilst it was refreshing to have a swim, the beach was rammed with people and there are no facilities to buy a drink or food actually on the beach. I was thankful for the leftover sandwich I had in my bag. The water was nice but honestly I think I am spoilt by beaches, as there is so much hype for Miami beach, but genuinely, I have had better beaches across the Caribbean and also in parts of Portugal and Spain.

After my little time on the sand, I made my way back onto the bus and headed over to Miami’s Design District and onwards to Wynwood Walls. Both of these locations demonstrate Miami’s lively art scene. The Design District uses modern art and architecture to create a flashy shopping district whereas Wynwood Walls is a fairly empty area except for a maze of street murals, that has given it the title of the world’s biggest outdoor art museum. It was easy to just enjoy cruising around on the bus to see these huge murals, as by this time my feet were hurting and I just wanted to relax and look out at the art.

Probably my favourite spot in the city was ‘Little Havana’, a small Cuban neighbourhood with lots of eateries and bars, and plenty of live Cuban music. This was a really lovely place to relax and soak up the Latin vibes. It was a great way to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and I definitely felt happy to have found this really unique part of Miami.

So with one more day in Florida, I decided to take an excursion to Everglades National Park. I had been once before on a previous visit to the state but that was for a night tour and I hadn’t had much luck seeing the alligators, so I decided to have a try during the day. Only about an hour from Miami, it was easy to access the Everglades which is a wetland area covering around 2 million acres of Florida.

Alligators, Crocodiles, Turtles, and a variety of birds can all be found here, as well as many visitors travelling the water by Airboat. Travelling around on an Airboat is quite the experience in itself, as the loud fan on the back blows you around the water, until a ‘gator is spotted and all of a sudden you are spinning in circles to see one. It is good fun and depending on the time of the year, you might see quite abit. I saw a number of alligators and definitely enjoyed the experience. I think if I had more time to spend there though it would be nice to go a little more into the national park rather than just the typical day excursion.

For my final night in Miami, I enjoyed a dinner at Bubba Gump. Even though, its a chain and we even have one in London now, it is delicious! I love the shrimp and the movie props for ‘Forrest Gump’ are a lot of fun. As well, it is worth saying that this was the most affordable meal in Miami. Miami is not for those of us with shallow pockets!

Overall, Miami gave me a nice few days. It’s a nice location for some fun and glamour and I really enjoyed the Latin feeling but it will probably be a one off location for me.. though I do imagine I will be there again one day, probably joining a cruise ship!

Exploring the Eastern Caribbean

I spent the Winter of 2022/23 sailing around the Eastern Caribbean, and discovering what this part of the world has to offer, other than the expected white sandy beaches and sapphire blue waters.

Local life and culture

The Caribbean may dream up different images to different people. Perhaps the white sandy beaches, palm trees, men in dreadlocks and lots of rum. Whilst, this part of the world does have all those things, it’s actually much more complex than just that, with a rich diversity of culture as well as differing social constructs throughout the different islands.

The different islands are grouped and governed separately, some independently and some by European powers. Many of the islands’ native tribes were wiped out by European colonisers and much of this influence still shows today. Some islands speak French because they were once French, and some such as Martinique still are a part of France. There are also islands that are spanish speaking and ones that are Dutch or British.

The influence of a European governing body, will of course affect wealth and opportunities too. Many British influenced islands, have the British legal and education systems. The French and Dutch islands also benefit from the additional European funding and the ease of movement of tourists from the mainland.

In most cases, where islands have separated themselves from their colonizing parent country, they are living in developing world status. Consistent and devastating hurricanes and natural disasters add to this reality.

The situation means that the cost of living can be very high for locals and many people have to be entrepreneurial in order to make an income. That may mean selling tours, setting up a bar, selling coconuts or even offering photos with captured monkeys. It is understandable that locals need to make the most of the incoming load of tourists arriving each year.

The people are also very relaxed and generous. Whilst they can be direct, I have always found the caribbean people to be very uplifting and kind. They follow generally one of two main religions, Christianity or Rastafarian. I never previously realised that this is an actual religion but it very much is. For example the reason for the dreadlocks is because it is considered against the religion to cut your hair as it represents your strength. It’s not just a fashion statement!

I have had some really great interactions with locals whilst working in the area. From direct business partners to a handsome rasta that broke an aloe vera plant in half and massaged me with the sap on the beach. Conversations about life, culture and family. It helps me open my eyes to new ways of living. A more relaxed lifestyle that takes each day as it comes, because in a moment everything can change.

Safe to say, keeping the drinks flowing, the music loud, and the air smelling of ganga is a part of the way of life and it certainly seems relaxing.

Nature

Outside of sandy coastlines, many of the islands I have visited have been full of nature. Especially rainforests.

I have been fortunate enough to bathe in mud pools inside an active volcano in St Lucia, discover thorn covered trees and hang from vines in the deep rainforest of St Kitts, as well as cruise past the TV set of ‘survivor’ in a jungle in Dominican Republic.

One of my favourite experiences has actually been flying over Antigua by helicopter. In that short flight I was able to see the shape of the island, the changes in the land from recent hurricanes, a good view of large coral reefs and coastal cliffs not accessible from land. During a flight, you can be lucky enough to see dolphins and whales, and you can also get a great bird eye’s view of places like Oprah’s holiday home!

I was surprised that it was not as easy as I expected to see wildlife. Whilst, iguanas and pelicans are commonplace, exotic fish, monkeys and mongoose are not as easy to track down. My best option to see the fish was by snorkelling or submarine, where i had the fun experience of seeing stingray and turtles, not always the easiest to spot when crowds of tourists are also trying to spot them..!

Of course, I can not neglect to mention the coastlines. Not every beach is like the postcard, many are on the Atlantic sea and can be choppy and unclear. But… the ones that are in the Caribbean Sea are magnificent. Antigua and Barbados won the beach lottery, but they also are bitter sweet for me, as the sea claimed two pairs of specs and a hat from me in only a few weeks!

Overall, I liked the Caribbean. It was not everything I expected but in some ways it was more. I think the people are my favourite part of the place, and I will be happy to return again next year!

A week in ‘the Big Apple’ and a day in Philly!

This March a group of us traveled out to the ‘Big Apple’ for a birthday celebration, and although I had my reservations about going for a full week, there was plenty to keep us busy and we even managed to squeeze a visit to Philly in too!

Flying with Delta

We traveled to JFK Airport from Heathrow with Delta airlines. This was a pretty pleasant journey with a lot of choice in entertainment with the in seat screens, you have a choice of recent movie releases, television shows, and games. There was also plenty of food & drink included in our flight, I enjoyed a full lunch, full hot dinner, movie snacks, and ice cream.

Staying in Brooklyn

We decided to rent an apartment in Brooklyn for our week in NYC as there was seven of us and to stay in a hotel in Manhattan would have been too expensive for us. It was nice to see Brooklyn and you could definitely feel the difference between this community suburb and the metropolitan atmosphere of Manhattan. We were lucky enough to find an apartment with enough rooms for us all and brilliant facilities, which also happened to be close to the subway station which was great!

We were in the area of Bushwick which had quite a few shops for us to get supplies such as much needed midnight nachos! We also made a visit to Williamsburg which is a trendy part of Brooklyn with many bars and restaurants, where we had the enjoyment of trying out a ‘Meatball Shop‘ a great restaurant offering various meatball & spaghetti recipes. Opposite this, was an amazing bakery which offered the most freshly baked cakes I have ever seen in one place! Definitely worth a stop!

As well as making use of a weekly subway ticket which is a bargain at $30, I would also recommend taking a walk from Brooklyn into Manhattan if you have a chance. This well known bridge has some great views of the New York skyline and various stalls and artists sitting a long it.

Brooklyn bridge

Me on Brooklyn bridge

Brooklyn

Views of New York; Statue of Liberty, Top of the Rock, & Empire State building

I visited many of the main view points in New York City both during the day and night and I would have to say that whilst the Empire State building was a great view point within Manhattan, the queuing process for this is very long for a reasonably short experience, so I would recommend getting there early and having your tickets already.

My favourite view overall was the view from the ferry to the Statue of Liberty which showed the true skyline of lower Manhattan surrounded in water. The boat is great too as you are able to go outside or inside on three different levels to get the best snap. We also went up the crown of the Statue of Liberty, which had to be pre-booked, and whilst this was a unique experience, it is a very cramped room to stand in and can be quite claustrophobic to climb the many winding steps to the top. I would say that being mid way up the statue can be just as good for a nice shot of Manhattan with a bit less squeezing in small places.

Manhattan, New York

Museums & Central Park

One of the things I didn’t realise before visiting New York was the pure amount of museums and galleries that were available to visit. We tried to pack in quite a few of the main museums, but if I was to revisit I would definitely carry on checking out the museums I missed.

Many of the museums we saw surrounded Central Park which meant we could take a stroll through the park between museum visits. Seeing Central Park in the winter was quite disappointing as it wasn’t the great green space we had hoped to see but the views around the reservoir were lovely and there were plenty of structures to look around at in the park.

The museums surrounding the park included; American Museum of Natural History, Museum of the City of New York and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. These were all fab, the Museum of the City of New York was more based on photographs and imagery and included an interesting film showing the full history of New York. The American Museum of Natural History was full of interesting artifacts from around the world and a brilliant collection of mammals, fish and of course dinosaurs that really wowed us! It was also fun to see familiar scenes in the museum that I’d seen in films like ‘Night at the Museum’. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was also rich in historical objects as well as beautiful sculptures and art, with each room designed differently to suit the period of time or style it represented.

Central Park Reservoir

Other museums that were interesting included; the Statue of Liberty museum which explained the history and meaning of this massive American symbol; Ellis Island which holds a huge museum dedicated to the millions of immigrants that came over to New York during the 19th century; and the 9/11 museum which is extremely moving and informative, and which I would recommend everyone should visit.

Times Square

As expected, Times Square is a very busy area, full of tourists and souvenir shops, but also great for restaurants and bars. We went into Times Square a few times for some delicious American food and shopping, a great place to chill out after a day of sightseeing.

Broadway & Sports

If seeing Times Square lit up at night isn’t enough, you can also fill up your evenings with entertainment. We split up our group and saw Chicago in Theatre whilst the boys headed to a Basketball game; Brooklyn Mets Vs Philadelphia 76ers. The game was a bargain and the boys were able to buy there $13 tickets online on the day, whilst the Chicago tickets although more expensive at $75 each were still half price due to being bought on the day from a local TKTs booth. There are several of these booths offering discounted theatre tickets around the city but we decided to use the Lincoln Centre booth as it was less busy and also is the only stand which is housed indoors. The show was great fun and of brilliant quality including song, dance and comedy.

Chinatown & Little Italy

For some great shopping bargains and interesting cuisine it is worth spending an afternoon in Chinatown and the adjacent Little Italy. There is a Chinese market full of peculiar ingredients available to purchase, various shops selling souvenirs and other bottom dollar items, as well as a number of shrines.

I made a visit to the Eastern States Buddhist Temple on Mott St, which was a small tucked away building which you would miss if you did not know where to look. As well as having a Buddhist shrine with a few people worshiping, the building also sold souvenirs and had a bowl of fortunes which you could pay a dollar to take one. My partner and I did this and had very opposite results. This was a great fun and really interesting to see when you wonder down the streets of Chinatown that there are so many of these small temples tucked away. There was also many locals stopping in the street to bow their heads into the doorways, making you want to peer in and take a look.

Little Italy is much smaller, only going over a few streets, but it has many restaurants selling traditional Italian food and you can get a great vibe for the heritage with the colours of the Italian flag painted all around.

Eastern States Buddhist Temple

Little Italy, NY

Chinese Market, Chinatown, NY

Our fortunes

Eastern States Buddhist Temple

A quick trip to Philly…

As we had a week staying in the US we decided to take advantage of our location and book a bus to Philadelphia, which is only 1.5/2 hours from NYC. We traveled with Greyhound for $20 which we booked online a few days before. Ticket collection at Penn Station in Manhattan was simple and the bus journey was fairly pleasant. We managed to arrive early enough to head down to the Independence Visitor Centre and pre-book the last tour of the day for Independence Hall, which can only be viewed through a free booked tour.

After this rush to the Centre we circled back a little bit and I visited the Reading Terminal Market… This market place had such an amazing variety of food from all over the world, and everything looked delicious… I have not stopped thinking about some of the goodies I saw in this place! Of course we had to try a Philly Cheesesteak which Philadelphia has made famous worldwide, and I can see why!

The Cheesesteak from ‘by George’ in the Reading Terminal Market was absolutely mouthwatering! A great mix of steak, onions and melted american cheese was simple but excellent. The stand also sold other amazing looking treats such as pastas, stromboli (rolled up pizza!) and they even made the salad look great! My cheesesteak was a footlong though so I was unable to fit anymore in, how I wish I could go back again though..

Philly Cheesesteak

After our tasty lunch we headed out towards the Philadelphia Museum of Art where the famous scene from Rocky was filmed of the boxer running up the steps leading to the museum. Many of the people in my group were fans of the film so we decided to take a look and they a long with many others changed into a set of grey trackies and climbed the steps just like Rocky. I had never quite seen anything like this before but I can’t say I wouldn’t do something similar if it was the set from my favourite film! There is now also a statue of Rocky in place which I decided I may as well have a photo shot with as I was there.

Me with Rocky statue, Philadelphia

To finish off the day we made our way back to the historic district and went towards our tour of Independence Hall. We rushed through security and took some photos of the famous Liberty Bell which I was surprised to have to queue for as I had thought it would be easily accessible outside, but in actual reality it was inside a small museum.

From there we went on to go through further security and on to our tour of Independence Hall which lasted around 40 minutes and included a look at the Assembly room where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The tour was of course very patriotic and took us through some of the basics of the US history including the revolution. This was very interesting as I had no idea beforehand how long it took the US to become established with laws and elected figures and this is of course is where many of the American people’s ideals today come from and of course the still celebrated ‘Independence Day’.

Liberty bell, Philadelphia

Assembly Room at Independence hall, Philadelphia

So that pretty much wraps up my visit to NYC & Philly, if I had made this a longer tour I probably would have made a visit to Washington, Boston or Niagara Falls and Toronto, but I am quite happy with all we squeezed in. This was a very tiring week with us totalling up around 10 miles of walking per day but well worth seeing some of America’s key symbols and historic locations, as well as experiencing New York life a little and meeting many friendly New Yorkers.

Quick tips:

Some other great places worth visiting and tips to remember whilst staying in New York…

Take a quick look in St Paul’s Chapel. This chapel was built in 1766 and is one of the earliest churches in American history, it is famous for being a place of worship for President George Washington, even immediately following his inauguration. There is also a lot of interesting information inside for visitors.
Be aware that what might not look far on the map, may actually be a hell of a long way! We were caught out a few times by thinking something at the end of the street wasn’t far, but many of the roads in New York are huge, so it is likely you will walk a long way. Save your feet and take the subway!
If you are going to a major attraction get there early! We went in March and the crowds were still huge in places like Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building. If you can, get there when it opens!
Purchase a New York CityPass! This was really handy as it meant our tickets were already sorted for the major attractions we wanted to go to and so in many places we did not have to join the longer ticket line.