Does it Live Up to the Hype?
South Beach
By Nathan Johnson
Particularly during this Spring Break-y time of year, a slew of beaches along the Florida coast become even hotter hot spots than they might be normally. The news media hypes them by broadcasting Spring Break stories, the local Florida travel and tourism industry hypes them, and you can bet MTV will be up in the hype mix somewhere.
One of those beaches, South Beach, just outside of Miami, may just be the most hyped beach in the entire country.
If you watch enough television, you’ve probably seen it featured on old episodes of Miami Vice or new episodes of CSI: Miami. It’s a spot for art deco architecture, sculpted bodies, celebrities, vintage cars, nightclubs, the Versace mansion and more sunglasses per capita than any other location on earth (OK … I made up that statistic about sunglasses, but there are seriously a lot of them there).
So, does South Beach earn its popularity and live up to the hype?
I wish there was a simple answer to that. Oh, wait. There is.
No. South Beach doesn’t live up to the hype.
Let’s look at the positives category:
- Is the actual beach beautiful? Yes.
- Are the women and men who hang out there beautiful? Mostly.
- Are the nightspots trendy? Yes.
- Is the food tasty? Yes.
- Is it a good place to see and be seen? Sure.
Now let’s take a look at the negatives category:
- Is the actual beach covered in men and women who really shouldn’t be wearing tiny bathing suits? Sadly, yes.
- Are the few local beautiful men and women who hang out on South Beach going to give you the time of day? No.
- Are the nightspots plagued with elevated cover charges and overpriced drinks? Yes.
- Is the food worth what you have to pay for it? No.
- Are most of the people seeing and being seen tourists? Yes.
- Is it difficult to find parking on Ocean Drive? Yes.
There you have it. The negatives outweigh the positives.
Of course, it’s important to remember that just because something doesn’t live up to the hype doesn’t mean it’s a complete waste of time. Will I be visiting South Beach next time I’m in Miami? Probably. I’m a huge sucker for beaches in general. I also have a couple of pairs of ridiculous sunglasses I’ve been itching to try out.
E-mail the author: Nathan Johnson
