Miami is an easy city for children and a punishing one for badly planned days. The attractions are spread across a county, the summer heat index regularly makes midday outdoors unpleasant for small people, and from June to October a short violent thunderstorm arrives most afternoons somewhere between two and five. Build the day around that and it works. Ignore it and you will spend the holiday negotiating in a car park.
Pick the right water first
Not all Miami beaches suit small children, and the differences are real.
Crandon Park, Key Biscayne
Crandon on Key Biscayne is the county's family beach for a reason: the water is shallow a long way out, the offshore sandbar knocks down the swell, there are lifeguards, cabanas and picnic shelters, and there is a restored vintage carousel in the park. Over the tolled Rickenbacker Causeway and worth the drive.
Matheson Hammock, for toddlers
Matheson Hammock Park, just south of Coral Gables, has a man-made atoll pool flushed by the tides of Biscayne Bay — a ring of calm, shallow, sandy-bottomed water with a beach around it. For toddlers it is the best swimming in Miami-Dade. Check the tide, because at low water it is very shallow indeed.
Bill Baggs, for shade
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park at the south end of Key Biscayne has a long, quiet beach, shade under Australian pines, a lighthouse dating to 1825 and rebuilt in 1846, and far fewer people than the ocean beaches to the north. Shade is the scarce resource on a Miami beach day with children, and this park has more of it than anywhere else on the coast. There is a café near the lighthouse and a paved path suitable for a pushchair.
South Beach, for older kids
South Beach works for teenagers who want the scene. It is not the gentlest water, shade is scarce and the crowd is dense by midday; go before eleven or pick a different beach.
Haulover, and a straight answer
Haulover Beach Park deserves a factual note rather than a coy one: part of it, between roughly lifeguard stands 12 and 16, is a legal clothing-optional section. The rest of the park is an ordinary family beach with a marina and kite-flying, and the two areas are separated and signposted.
The indoor list, which you will need
| Place | Ages | Hours needed | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frost Science Museum | 4–14 | 3–4 | Aquarium and planetarium in one building; the rooftop Gulf Stream tank is the draw |
| Miami Children's Museum | 2–8 | 2–3 | Watson Island, next to Jungle Island; pure play |
| Jungle Island | 3–10 | 3–4 | Small, hot, animal-encounter focused |
| Pérez Art Museum Miami | 8+ | 1.5–2 | Bayfront, shaded terraces, free family programming at times |
| Bayside Marketplace | all | 1–2 | Boats leave from here; more waterfront than shopping |
Frost Science is the strongest single rainy-afternoon option in the city. Its Gulf Stream aquarium runs through three floors, with an open tank at the top and a viewing oculus at the bottom, so the same animals read completely differently depending on where you stand.
Zoo Miami: go early or not at all
Zoo Miami covers around 750 acres in South Dade and is the only subtropical zoo in the continental United States, with more than three thousand animals. It is also enormous, largely open-air and almost entirely without shade at the scale a four-year-old needs. Arrive at opening, use the tram or rent wheels, and plan to leave by early afternoon. In July, leave by noon.
Two outdoor days that hold up
The Everglades. The Anhinga Trail boardwalk at Royal Palm, inside the Homestead entrance, is under a mile, flat, stroller-friendly and puts alligators, turtles and wading birds within metres of a railing. Children who have been dragged around museums come alive here. Go in the dry season, November to April, when it is cooler and the animals concentrate.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables: 83 acres of palms, a tram narration children actually listen to, butterfly conservatory and enough lawn to run on.
Also worth an hour: the Deering Estate in Palmetto Bay for the shoreline and the boardwalks, and the Miami Riverwalk downtown for a flat, free, boat-watching stroll.
The Venetian Pool caveat
The Venetian Pool in Coral Gables — 820,000 gallons carved out of a coral rock quarry in 1924 and fed from an underground aquifer — is a wonderful swim and a common family disappointment, because children must be at least three years old and at least 38 inches tall to enter, and staff check. It also closes on Mondays and in cooler months. If you have a toddler, go to Matheson Hammock instead.
Practical things that matter more here than elsewhere
Rideshare with a small child is the weak point of not renting a car; car seats are not standard. If you have under-fours, rent the car.
The Metromover is free, elevated, driverless and loops Downtown and Brickell. Small children treat it as a ride. It is the cheapest twenty minutes of entertainment in the city.
Sun here is stronger than most visitors expect, and the water reflects it. Reapply at lunchtime whatever the packaging claims. Rash vests beat repeated sunscreen arguments.
Afternoon storms in summer are brief — twenty minutes to an hour — and come with lightning. Lifeguards clear the water and they are right to. Plan the indoor thing for 2pm rather than fighting it.
And distances are longer than the map suggests. Key Biscayne and Zoo Miami are each most of a day. Trying to add a second stop is how a good day becomes a bad one.
Free things that work with children
The Metromover loop through Downtown, Brickell and the Arsht Center area. No ticket, no gate, elevated the whole way, and about twenty stops.
The Wynwood streets outside the ticketed Walls. Murals on every block, and older children with a phone camera will happily spend an hour.
Bayfront Park and the Miami Riverwalk downtown, where the working river brings tugs and sport-fishers past at close range.
The Institute of Contemporary Art in the Design District, which is free, air-conditioned and small enough not to exhaust anyone.
Beach access itself. Miami-Dade and Miami Beach charge for parking, not for sand.
And the last Friday of the month on Calle Ocho, when Viernes Culturales fills the street with music early in the evening, is free and works for children until about nine.
Getting them on the water
Miami is a boat city and children respond to that faster than to any museum.
Short bay sightseeing cruises leave from Bayside Marketplace and run about ninety minutes, which is the right length for under-tens. They are gentle, narrated, and stay inside Biscayne Bay, so seasickness is rare.
Sandbar and island cruises are the local version and better if your children are confident in water: the boat anchors in waist-deep water over a sandbar and everyone gets out.
Biscayne National Park runs boat trips from Convoy Point near Homestead. The park is 95 per cent water, so a boat is the only way to see it properly, but the trips run three hours or more and are a poor fit for very young children.
Jet skis and parasailing carry minimum ages and weights that vary by operator. Ask before booking rather than at the dock.
Whatever you book, take the morning departure. Afternoon wind builds and so does the chop.
Last updated
Opening hours, ordinances and prices move with the season. We re-check this guide rather than rewrite it, and the date above is the last time someone did. How we research and correct.
