For Spring Break this year, my friends and I decided to take a beach trip down to Miami together. Having never traveled to that part of Florida before, I was pretty excited to see what the city had to offer, but more importantly, I was excited to get my butt into a beach chair—which is exactly what I did.
We rented a house on Airbnb, which was, for the most part, the perfect place for us to stay while in Miami. We had our own pool and complete privacy on the property. We also had a full kitchen, living room, and even a grill in the backyard, which was perfect for cooking barbeque dinners. A full-sized fridge stocked with White Claws didn’t hurt either.
The house was a few miles from Sunny Isles beach, Hollywood beach, and about a 20 minute ride from South Beach, where we spent our first day. Aside from just about every single one of us being lackadaisical about sunscreen and consequently coming home burnt to a crisp, we had the best day. The waves were huge and the water was crystal clear—just like I had pictured. After the beach, we headed over to happy hour at a restaurant called Monty’s, right on the water. They had a raw bar, amazing margaritas, and the best fried calamari. We all had a great time there, sunburns and all.
The nightlife in Miami was pretty wild. The bars and clubs had a different atmosphere than I expected—much different than Boston. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, but it was really cool to witness some of the culture down there. My favorite place we went to was called Shot’s, and unsurprisingly, they had insane types of specialty shots on the menu. The bar itself was also partially outside, which was a really cool vibe, too.
My favorite part of the trip, though, was coming home late at night, and sitting by the pool. Some of the group would head to bed right when we got home, but I loved the few of us that sat next to the pool in the quiet nighttime air, with music and non-stop laughing.
Although we had a great time in Miami, the COVID-19 outbreak began escalating right around the middle of our time there, which did add a certain amount of stress to our trip. We found out on the plane ride home that our college was moving online for the rest of the semester, which made going our separate ways at the airport a more serious goodbye than we had initially thought.
Our lives completely turned upside down during the time we spent in Miami, and it was at times, stressful to be away from home during the crisis, but I’m extremely happy that my friends and I were able to make our trip—it was a sort of “last hoorah” for us. As I sit in my house quarantining for the next few weeks, I’m just about tearing up as I reminisce about sitting on Miami’s beautiful beaches with my best friends, but I am extremely grateful that we were able to share the trip together and return home safe and healthy. I just can’t wait to start planning next year’s trip.