Miami Beach: Art Deco Walking Tour & Movie Locations

5.00

(147 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

The first thing I remember is the color — that weird, soft blue of the sky bouncing off the pastel buildings on Ocean Drive. Our guide, Carlos, waved us over by the old neon sign outside the Colony Hotel. He had this stack of postcards in his hand, showing what South Beach looked like in the 1930s — honestly, not that different if you squint. The air smelled faintly like sunscreen and fried plantains drifting from somewhere nearby (I never did find out where). We started our walk right there, dodging cyclists and a guy rollerblading with a parrot on his shoulder. Only in Miami Beach.

Carlos knew everyone — or at least he acted like it. He’d nod to doormen outside these grand old hotels and suddenly we’d be inside, wandering through lobbies with terrazzo floors cool underfoot. There was this one spot where he paused by a velvet rope and whispered about a scene from Scarface filmed just upstairs. I tried to picture it but mostly I was distracted by the ceiling fans spinning lazily above us. Sometimes he’d point out tiny details — like seashell motifs hiding in plain sight on the facades — things I’d walked past before without ever noticing. The main keyword here is Miami Beach art deco tour, but honestly it felt more like hanging out with someone who loves telling stories than anything formal.

We ducked into an alley (I hesitated for half a second — looked sketchy but wasn’t) and ended up on this rooftop terrace nobody else seemed to know about. You could see Biscayne Bay glinting between buildings; Carlos told us how it used to be all swamp until people decided to build paradise from scratch. At one point he handed out little bottles of water (it was humid as soup), then passed around this hand-drawn map he’d made himself — complete with doodles of flamingos and tiny palm trees. Someone asked about Miami Vice filming locations and Carlos just grinned: “That’s two blocks over — we’ll get there.”

I still think about that moment on the terrace: breeze finally cutting through the heat, laughter echoing off stucco walls, feeling like we’d stumbled into a secret part of Miami Beach most people miss. By the end I had sand in my shoes and way too many photos of pastel buildings on my phone. So yeah — if you want something more than just another walk down Ocean Drive, this day trip through Miami Beach’s art deco history with a local guide is worth it.