Within ten minutes of my arrival at Miami Beach I had several surprises. 

My host stopped at a store to buy a siphon of gas. “Gas?” I queried, as the chauffeur came out with a thing that looked like a small oxygen cylinder. “Do you mean gas, or gasolene, or oxygen?” I asked, as the chauffeur deposited the cylinder in the car. 

“Gas, natural gas, for cooking,” replied my host, smiling. 

“It’s ‘bottled’ as it comes out of the earth.” “But how do you use it-isn’t it dangerous?” “Not at all. You’ve seen oxygen cylinders? Well, we feed it into the gas oven in the same way, by turning a tap.” “And it’s natural gas-taken straight out of the earth?” “Quite natural.” The car started, I sat back. But something else made me ask another question. “Just now your chauffeur put a coin into a machine standing by the kerb. Was he buying chewing- gum?” “No-he was reducing the rates.” I looked puzzled, and my host explained.

“He was putting a nickel in the park-o-meter. You pay five cents for twenty minutes if you want to halt your car in the main streets. It checks congestion, stops you leaving your car indefinitely, and helps the city’s revenue. The park-o-meter company pays a yearly sum for the right to erect their meters.” “And the visitors pay the rates!” “Part of them. We have to live on our visitors- we’ve got no income-tax.” “What!” I exclaimed. “No income tax and no inheritance tax.” “I wonder the whole world doesn’t migrate here.” “It will do one day. It’s getting like that now in winter.” I saw it was. 

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On my automobile trip from Washington to Florida and Miami Beach I stayed a night at Goldsboro, North Carolina, to see a friend whom I had known when he served in the American Consulate in London during the Great War, and later at Harvard University, where he was taking a law course. 

My Goldsboro friend, who had been a member of the North Carolina Legislature, as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment on seeing me, immediately collected some of his friends. 

In the discussion of the war that ensued I began to learn the opinion of the South and especially about Miami, Miami Beach and the Keys. 

It seemed wholeheartedly for giving England and France the maximum assistance against the Nazis. In the House of Representatives in Washington, where the amendment of the Neutrality Bill had come to the vote the Southern States showed no hesitation in expressing their sympathies. They voted 95 to 2 for the amendment. 

From Goldsboro I journeyed to Charleston in South Carolina. It is a city of lovely homes in which are to be found some of the finest examples of the classical era in American architecture, very different from the South Beach in Florida. 

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The singular characteristics of the great state of Florida are so well known that we can risk being brief. 

Visitors from the North are apt to take one look at that Heliogabaluslike organism Miami Beach, and say: “Florida isn’t part of the South at all.” Actually, the Peninsula State is very much part of the South; it contains not merely most of the familiar southern stigmata, but much else particularly and distinctively its own. 

Florida has by far the longest seaboard of any American state which fact alone, giving it a kind of ocean culture, distinguishes it markedly. 

It has a history stretching far back indeed: there were 306 years between Ponce de Leon and proprietorship by the United States; St. Augustine is the oldest town in North America, having been founded in 1565. 

More that any other southern state except possibly Louisiana, Florida has variety; it combines an old Spanish underlay, the atmosphere of the deep South, and most important of all, a tremendous incursion from the North. 

For these and other reasons, it has more vitality than any southern area, with the possible exception of Tennessee in the valley region.

Consider some of the things Florida has, in various but accordant fields. 

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Cruising down Collins Avenue, marveling the couturiers’ row of high-fashion shops; strolling up the boardwalk fronting Ocean Drive, gasping at the Technicolor whimsy of its art deco hotels and apartment buildings.

Rollerblading east to west along the no-cars- allowed Lincoln Road Mall, watching its revival unfold before your eyes, you can’t help but think that South Beach is not at all real, that this magical place where it seems everyone is forever on vacation is some kind of fantasy cooked up by the animators at Disney.

ou would not be wrong to make that assumption.

South Beach is a fantasy, a stunningly successful fantasy, dreamed of (and even foreseen) a decade ago by a handful of visionaries thought by most to be insane or at least aspiring to be.

A tightly knit group of artists, restaurateurs, devotees of art deco architecture and plain old personalities, they were people who seemed to eke out a living merely by existing for the amusement of others.

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In Miami Beach, it is possible to stay in any type of hotel.

From Boutique Hotels, which are small, have a small number of rooms and trendy designs, to the large hotel chains with more classic furniture.

We have selected the best for each category: 5 Stars, 4 Stars, 3 Stars and 2 Stars, based on position, style, charm, services and price. All our hotels are quite unique. Their design is fancy, and there’s a great care for details. All of them also represent the Miami Beach’s philosophy: trendiness.

Here the Maps of the Hotels in South Beach.

The most interesting and famous are usually found in Ocean Drive.

We suggest those because that way you won’t necessarily need a car. You’ll be able to walk out of the hotel and dive into SOBE’s atmosphere. One gets a nice feeling when one opens the door and feels a lot of people talking and moving.

One will never feel alone in Miami Beach.

You’ll be able to dress the way you like, eat at any hour of the day, even by yourself, and no one will bother you, as you will always feel part of the community.

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