24 Best Hotels in South Beach, Miami and Miami Beach

This snazzy eco-minded hotel delivers a picturesque, nature-inspired aesthetic throughout the common spaces and room interiors (think heavy use of repurposed wood, living walls, preserved moss, and glassware from recycled wine bottles) and offers a choice of four swimming pools (including the best rooftop one in Florida), a luxurious beach club featuring Wave, a sea-to-table restaurant, and an excellent swath of beach. The 1’s famed 110-foot rooftop pool is laced with palm trees and loungers and remains adults-only day and night, when it transforms into one of the city’s coolest bars. The lobby, with its triple floor-to-ceiling moss art and driftwood lighting fixtures, is one of Miami’s most Instagrammed locales.

After a massive expansion, the original Betsy Ross Hotel (christened the "Colonial" wing) has been joined with what was the neighboring, historic Carlton Hotel to create a retro-chic, art deco treasure that delivers the full-throttle South Beach experience with style, pizzazz, and a big-time cultural bonus: year-round programs include poetry readings, live jazz, and art shows. The front porch and outdoor eating space along Ocean Drive are perfect for quintessential SoBe people-watching. The lobby, which remains in the original Colonial wing, is busy, but not insanely so, and cultivates a social, trendy scene, especially in the evenings. The guest rooms of The Betsy 2.0 embody a color palette of white and ocean-blue tones with pops of green. Enjoy time at the rooftop pool deck, and consider dining at the hotel's excellent surf-and-turf restaurant by chef Laurent Tourondel, LT Steak & Seafood.

At this enclave of old and new South Beach, a contemporary, 85-room tower with a rooftop pool neighbors several 1930s-era villas and modern low-rise units, together capturing the feel of a sophisticated private villa community. The secluded, landscaped setting makes it easy to forget that the hotel is on busy Washington Avenue, two blocks from the beach. New tower rooms are done in neutral tones with accents in shades of blue. Each has its own balcony. The resort fee here includes towels and foldable umbrellas to take to the beach, but the sixth-floor sun deck and rooftop pool beckon if you don't feel like walking five minutes to the beach. Consider kicking off your evenings downstairs at the stylish Minnow Bar, where clear spirits are blank canvases for cocktail creativity.

This opulent, all-suites hotel feels like an Asian museum: serene and beautiful, with heavy granite furniture lifted by orange accents, warm candlelight, and the soft bubble of seemingly endless ponds complemented by three oceanfront infinity pools (heated to different temperatures) that further spill onto the beach's velvety sands. Suites are a minimum of 550 square feet and are divided between the hotel's art deco building and its residential tower. The colossal Ocean Suites range from one-bedroom to a 10,000-square-foot, four-bedroom suite, all with special amenities like a private VIP entrance, a dedicated concierge, round-trip private airport transfers, complimentary spa treatment, and access to the house cars. Even if you can't afford a stay at one of Miami's priciest hotels, take time to visit this most beautifully designed space. Its restaurants and bar— Jaya, Ocean Grill, Japón, and The Bar & Courtyard—are open to nonguests, as is the fabulous Valmont for The Spa at The Setai. The oceanfront gardens are lush and painstakingly manicured, and rooms are as expansive as the premises and furnished in an Asian style that is at once minimalist and cozy. The beach lounges and beachside service are pure bliss.

Fun, fresh, and funky, the W South Beach flaunts some of the nicest rooms in South Beach—even the entry category evokes a wow factor—each with its own kitchen and balcony with ocean views. The textured walls, whimsical accessories, and clean symmetries play out like a spread from Architectural Digest. Overall, the property represents the brand's evolution toward young sophistication, which means less club music in the lobby, more lighting, and more attention to the multimillion-dollar art collection lining the lobby's expansive walls (look for high-end contemporary art from famous names like Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, and Kenny Scharf). That said, the pool scene is everything and anything one could want from South Beach and the W brand—tight bodies, cabanas, and a gorgeous crowd sipping mojitos. The beach is just steps behind with a private area for W South Beach guests. Although the hotel does not boast an art deco facade, its interiors are far more eclectic and superior to neighboring hotels.

Located along the beach's lesser-known western perimeter and overlooking the bay, this hotel recently underwent a multimillion-dollar transformation; the focal points are a new beach club, a spa, and a happening pool scene. The standout feature, Baia Beach Club, is an open-air living room space where members can drift through to dine or lounge as they please. The pool scene here is always a place to be. Tropical and handmade macramé artwork set the stage for fresh and simple guest rooms, each curated with a sleek kitchen area. The West Avenue location affords picture-perfect sunsets, but it's a 10- to 15-minute trek to the beach.

Royal Palm South Beach Miami, now part of Marriott's individualistic Tribute Portfolio, is a daily celebration of art deco, modernity, and design detail. Laura Rottet of Rottet Studios was charged with reinventing South Beach's original 1939 Royal Palm and Shorecrest buildings alongside the Royal Palm's younger annexes to create a seamless design masterpiece. Rooms assume a classic South Beach identity with blends of whites and pops of tropical colors. Double-door minibars open to a world of local Florida products, while colossal, wood-framed mirrors function as sliding doors for the oversize bathrooms. Beyond design brilliance, Royal Palm is an endless indulgence of the best of South Beach, including plenty of beachside and poolside bliss, excellent eating at its in-house restaurant, Byblos, and fabulous people-watching. The hotel's location at 15th and Collins places Royal Palm in the heart of the South Beach action.

In South Beach's SoFi (South of Fifth) neighborhood, the boutique Lord Balfour hotel is a great fit for young travelers who want to get out and experience South Beach (as opposed to sitting at a resort all day) and then return to stylish digs. Guest rooms within this refurbished art deco building are simple and swathed in neutral tones. There's a small plunge pool on the roof deck, and hotel guests get two beach chairs on the sand. A ground-floor restaurant serves Latin-inspired food and drinks.

A former home to World War II officer cadets, this gem has been reimagined as an oasis in South Beach, offering the antithesis of the sometimes maddening jet-set scene, with 34 distinctive rooms exuding understated luxury. All rooms implement art deco style and feature beautiful antiques hand chosen by the hotel's proprietor. Vintage touches, like iron lighting fixtures and steamer trunks, add nice accent notes. If you're looking for loud music and wild times, go elsewhere. Cadet is more about enjoying a good read on the patio and discovering elusive serenity in the heart of South Beach. Little touches, like candles in the lobby, fresh flowers all around, high-thread-count sheets, and small pouches filled with fresh lavender or seashells, depending on the season, show care and sophistication. This intimate hideaway is one block away from Lincoln Road, two blocks from the beach, and two blocks from the New World Center. Clark Gable stayed in Room 224 during his time training with the Army Air Corps in the 1940s.

The Catalina is a fun, budget party spot in the heart of South Beach, attracting plenty of early twentysomethings who value freebies like a nightly drink hour, airport shuttles, fitness classes, two fun pools, and beach chairs over posh digs. It's across the street from the beach, but nobody seems to mind the short walk. Each of the Catalina's three buildings has a distinct feel: the original Catalina (with the smallest, most inexpensive rooms) is an exercise in camp, with red-shag carpets, two-story glass windows, and monumental sheer drapes. The midrange rooms are in the old Maxine Hotel, decorated in rock baroque and featuring a karaoke machine in the lobby. Room 400 here is one of the beach's best values, with a private sundeck overlooking the strip. The most luxurious part of the Catalina is the Dorset Hotel, which now houses the hotel's biggest rooms. Its outdoor restaurant, Maxine's Bistro, overlooks the passersby on this very sexy strip of Collins Avenue, making the Catalina an entertainment complex in its own right.

This trendy boutique hotel, which is right in the center of the South Beach action, merges two refurbished, archetypal, 1939 art deco buildings into a single project of eclectic modernism, with whimsically decorated interiors that are at once trippy and cool. Designer Michael Czysz dressed rooms with colored bed lighting, bold chandeliers, and glass closets. And true to the boutique style, rooms are on the small side and often cater to a younger crowd searching for fast times in the Magic City. The see-through bathroom walls are a bit of a style overfunction and create some difficulty when sharing a room with friends or even your significant other. But once you get past that, Dream is idyllic for adventures in hedonism: tanning on the beach (with quick access), making new friends (over sun-kissed libations on the roof), and late-night debauchery (crawling distance to most nightlife). Expect lots of fun on the rooftop by day or night; there's both a petite swimming pool and the 1970s-inspired pool lounge HIGHBAR, which kicks into gear at nightfall. The hotel also provides beach chairs on its very own designated section of beach just south of 11th Street.

Though it’s not directly on the beach—it’s across the street—this boutique hotel offers fabulous, style- and value-conscious accommodations in the heart of South Beach with plenty of art deco history to boot. Originally designed by noted architect L. Murray Dixon as sister hotels, the Gale and the Regent, debuting in 1941, the hotel was resurrected in 2012 by Menin Hospitality. Sun worshippers looking for a scene can hang out on the pool deck in their best skimpy swimsuits or chill on the rooftop with a cocktail. Hotel guests have complimentary beach club access at the Shelborne Hotel, also managed by Menin Hospitality.

Not to be confused with the budget Bentley Hotel down the street, the Hilton Bentley Miami is a contemporary, design-driven, and artsy boutique hotel in the emerging and trendy SoFi (South of Fifth) District, offering families just the right mix of South Beach flavor and wholesome fun while still providing couples a romantic base without any party madness. Occupying two 10-story buildings with a prime beachfront location, rooms and suites (collectively called "studios") range from snug to colossal, each adorned with a perfect mix of art deco redux and modern bling. They feature Italian-marble flooring, kitchenettes, and balconies facing either the ocean or the Miami skyline. It happens to be one of the area's few kid-friendly boutique hotels, and, as such, for the little ones there are child-size beach chairs and umbrellas as well as a bunch of other kids' amenities on request.

This value-conscious art deco property inhabits the historic Tiffany building on Collins Avenue as well as a second building along Ocean Drive with interiors by fashion designer Todd Oldham. The name "Tiffany" spelled out vertically in eye-popping neon on the venue’s iconic aluminum spire is evidence of the hotel’s original identity. When the L. Murray Dixon–designed Tiffany Hotel was erected in 1939, neon was still a novelty. Its use, coupled with the spire’s rocketlike shape, combined to create a futuristic look influenced by the sci-fi themes then pervasive in popular culture. Nowadays you can walk through a large porch—a remnant of when Miami Beach hotels had no air-conditioning and guests cooled off outdoors—and enter the lobby, furnished with comfortable chairs and porthole windows. Rooms have blond-wood furnishings, accented by bright window treatments, pillows, and bedding in primary colors.

At the sleek Hotel Victor, guest rooms are equipped with Yabu Pushelberg–designed interiors invoking a post-century beach cabana vibe, and a sexy infinity-edge pool overlooks Ocean Drive and the beach. The property first rose to fame thanks to Parisian designer Jacques Garcia; Yabu Pushelberg has since replaced Garcia's jellyfish motif with a newer incarnation of bold modernism. The lobby features a stunning midcentury-modern vibe and is an oasis from Miami Beach's famed Ocean Drive—just outside the door. A large patio overlooks the action from a calmer viewpoint. Rooms face either the pool or the ocean. Many are compact but highly functional and even house oversize bathrooms. Each room comes with a set of foldable beach chairs for guests to take onto the nearby sands.

As part of the hip Kimpton Hotel group, South Beach's legendary Surfcomber hotel reflects a vintage luxe aesthetic and an ocean-side freshness as well as a reasonable price point that packs the place with a young, sophisticated, yet unpretentious crowd. Expect bursts of tropical colors that perfectly complement the terrazzo floors and create an ideal lobby backdrop. Rooms are a little small but offer an ample dose of sweet and stylish modern opulence. The outdoor spaces channel backyard bliss, with plenty of lounge chairs surrounding the pool and two floors of poolside cabanas. The grassy lounge area behind the pool includes an entire sandy beach playground complete with picnic tables, games, and the High Tide Bar. Stop by the Social Club for shareable plates paired with craft cocktails and local beers. Wi-Fi, a nightly wine hour, and morning coffee are all complimentary.

Providing understated luxury in the middle of the Collins Avenue action, this small, sophisticated hotel occupies a beautifully renovated art deco building (formerly the historic Peter Miller Hotel) and is a block from the beach. Rooms by Argentinian interior designer Juan Ciavarella are simple but chic and sustainable, with natural elements such as light woods and upcycled materials. Some rooms overlook or open to a narrow courtyard pool area with a bar, while others have balconies overlooking the neighborhood. A cool bar lounge just inside the entrance makes it a joy to linger and admire the building's original architectural details.

This two-tower megahotel has 790 rooms with a soothing, sea-inspired motif, top-tier amenities, a massive spa, a great pool, and direct beachfront access, making it a great choice for families, businesspeople, groups, and pet lovers. When it was built in 1998, Loews managed not only to snag 99 feet of beach but also to take over the vacant St. Moritz next door and restore it to its original 1939 art deco beauty. The entire complex combines boutique charm with updated opulence. How big is it? The Loews has 85,000 square feet of meeting space and an enormous ocean-view grand ballroom. A three-story spa has 15 treatment rooms and a state-of-the-art fitness center. In the grand lobby you'll find a dozen black-suited staffers behind the counter and a half dozen other bellboys and valets. Rooms are great: contemporary and very comfortable, with flat-screen TVs and high-end amenities. But the best part is the pool area, just steps from the beach and equipped with cooling misters.

The adults-only National Hotel is a glorious time capsule that honors its distinct art deco heritage (the building itself and wood pieces in the lobby date from 1939, and new chocolate- and gold-hue furnishings look period-appropriate) while trying to keep up with SoBe's glossy newcomers (rotating art installations complement the throwback glamour). Safari-chic guest rooms, draped in leopard, zebra, and giraffe prints, are found within the historic art deco tower; the poolside cabana wing has larger suites. The hotel serves as a bastion of calm in the sea of white-on-white mod decor and raucous reveling typical of most other beachfront properties lining this stretch of Collins Avenue. The most spectacular feature is Miami Beach's longest infinity-edge pool (a whopping 203 feet long), which stretches from the tower, past a series of comfy striped cabanas and poolside tables, to a tropical tiki bar and the beach.

The recently renovated Ritz-Carlton is a trendy beachfront bombshell, with a dynamite staff, a snazzy Club Lounge, and a long pool deck that leads right out to the beach. There are all the usual high-level draws the Ritz is known for and more. Expect attentive service, a kids' club, property experiences like a shark-tagging boat excursion with the University of Miami, and high-end food and beverage offerings. The spa has exclusive brands of scrubs and creams. New dining includes a sultry bar, Lapidus, and a bright, airy pool-view restaurant, Fuego Y Mar, serving Mexican, Cuban, Venezuelan, and Colombian fusion dishes. The wonderful DiLido Beach Club restaurant is, believe it or not, one of the very few places in Miami where you can get a beachside meal. The ocean is on one side and the pedestrian Lincoln Road begins on the other: the locale is tops. Overall, this landmarked 1953 hotel, designed by Morris Lapidus, has never been hotter.

This supersleek, all-white, all-suites hotel in the middle of the action looks and feels like an edgy art gallery, filled with brilliant contemporary works, the perfect complement to the posh, gargantuan, 500-square-foot crash pads. With all the mind-bending hipness, you might expect South Beach pretentiousness, but there's none here. In fact, the service is excellent. All suites have some kind of kitchen component, with at least a microwave and mini-refrigerator, sometimes a full refrigerator and stove. What else? How about huge flat-screen TVs and whirlpool baths? As you might expect of such an arty place, hallways are lined with noted artists' quotes, and public restrooms feature avant-garde video installations. The 500-square-foot terrace overlooking the ocean is great for spa parties.

The famed Morris Lapidus–designed Shelborne hotel is a retro-chic art deco treasure with stylish yet functional rooms and plenty of oh-so–South Beach amenities, including the beach's most oversized poolside cabanas (which also happen to be air-conditioned), a slick pool deck, a private beach club, and a location that offers direct access to downy sands, art deco, and superlative shopping. The lobby has been refurbished to its original mid-century modern splendor, thanks to Meg Sharpe Interiors. Sputnik lamps light the way as you walk on classic terrazzo flooring and explore various settings. Some areas are the epitome of Mad Men style, others made modern and whimsical by the addition of animal prints and chrome accents. The rooms tend to be on the small side, but the incredible location makes up for it (and translates to minimal lingering). Outside, original diving board towers are a reminder of a bygone era. The pool deck retains its charm, though modernized with chaise lounges, sun umbrellas, and a fully stocked bar.

Housed in a restored 1939 art deco building, SLS South Beach exudes beachfront sophistication over a commingling of Latin and Asian inspiration in its common areas, plus dining outposts The Bazaar South Beach, Katsuya South Beach, and Hyde Beach Miami—an 8,000-square-foot masterpiece of pool, beach, and cabanas attracting glitterati daily. Rooms exude a design that's remarkably Philippe Starck. Think predominantly white-on-white panache, with sexy chandeliers and even sexier (or kinkier) ceiling mirrors, and sketchbook-style wall drapings. Starck also designed the two pools, which feature a 10-foot-tall, silver rubber ducky as their focal point. Cabanas are available for rental, or you can lounge on a daybed with a cocktail.

This is definitely not your grandmother's Crowne Plaza: the lauded firm of Arquitectonica designed this glossy and bold all-suites hideaway, including 27 rooftop suites endowed with terraces, each complete with Jacuzzi, plush chaise lounges, and a view of the South Beach skyline. Units are at least 500 square feet and have big balconies. The floor-to-ceiling windows are soundproof—important given its proximity to Ocean Drive. The furnishings are contemporary and sleek but comfortable, with two flat-screen TVs and oversize, marble-floored bathrooms. A glass-bottom pool features teak loungers and bar service. The Z also offers a beach club with lounge chairs and umbrellas for guest usage. Spa services are offered in-room.