2 Best Hotels in Fisher and Belle Islands, Miami and Miami Beach

An exclusive private island, just south of Miami Beach but accessible only by ferry, Fisher Island houses an upscale residential community that includes a small inventory of overnight accommodations, including opulent cottages, villas, and junior suites, which surround the island's original 1920s-era Vanderbilt mansion. Hotel guests enjoy Fisher Island member privileges during their stay. After the ferry crossing, you're welcomed at reception with champagne. Considering you get a private house, a golf cart, and a private courtyard with a Jacuzzi, villas are idyllic for a memorable honeymoon or some other special occasion, if not a casual weekend. Families should choose one of three former guest cottages of the former Italianate mansion of William K. Vanderbilt, which forms the resort's centerpiece.

Amenities include a 9-hole golf course, luxurious Spa Internazionale, 18 lighted tennis courts (hard, grass, and clay), and 1 mile of very private (and very quiet) beach with white sand imported from the Bahamas. On-island there are seven restaurants for hotel guests, including the alfresco waterfront Beach Club, an Italian fine-dining restaurant called Porto Cervo, and the famous Garwood Lounge & Piano Bar, which features nightly piano music and seats just 34. Remarkably, this true exclusivity and seclusion is minutes from South Beach.

An extension of André Balazs's trendy and hip—yet budget-conscious—brand, this shabby-chic boutique hotel is a mile from South Beach on an island just over the Venetian Causeway and has among South Florida's most renowned spas, trendiest bars, and hottest pool scenes. The message: we'll do what we please, and the cool kids will follow. The scene attracts trendy 30- and 40-year-olds interested in showing off at the pool and then indulging in the hotel's many "do-it-yourself" spa activities, including mud bathing, scrubbing with sea salts, soaking in hot or arctic-cold waters, and yoga. An 8-foot, 103-degree cascade into a Roman hot tub is typical of the handful of adult pleasures on the pool deck. You can also go kayaking around the island. On the hotel facade you'll see the monumental signage of a bygone occupant, the Lido Spa Hotel, and the much smaller sign of its current occupant, hung, with a wink, upside down. Rooms are small and simple, though they have thoughtful touches like a picnic basket and embroidered fabric covers for the small flat-screen TVs. First-floor rooms have outdoor soaking tubs but very limited privacy, so few take that plunge. The waterfront, alfresco Lido Bayside Grill makes for great people-watching.