ANy one driven in Miami?

LondonDiva

We're going to be in Miami and I was wondering what people's impressions of driving there.

We'll be there for four days and I'd like to rent for two or three of those days as we want to go to one of the malls and also a few sightseeing places on the other days.

I've driven in London, the Rockies and east Canada, but not sure how aggressive drivers are there or how complicated the road layouts etc are.

If reccommended, I'd be happy to pay a little more for sat nav but I wondered what views and experiences of driving in the US and specifically Miami were.

All advice gratefully received.

thanks

KarenG

We found some of the freeways a bit hairy (due to the many lanes and interchanges at some points!), but driving around the Miami Beach area was very, very straightforward. The price of parking is a bit scary, so factor that in.

neilbond007

I agree with the above $15 to park close to the beach. Go a few blocks away and it gets a little cheaper.

Miami, like most of the US, is pretty easy to get around. It's pretty normal for an American to suddenly swerve across 4 lanes of traffic to get off at an exit!
I have a tomtom so always have that on in a strange city.

Good luck!

swivellingmonk

We flew into Miami before going down to the Keys for a couple of weeks. We were offered satnav at a reasonable extra cost, but thought you couldn't get lost on the one road down the Keys.

Unfortunately, we forgot the 3 days we were staying in Miami first - it took us 2 hours to find our hotel which was only about 10 miles away!

We could see the freeway, but we couldn't seem to get onto it - many arguments ....!

Would have been much less stressful with the satnav!! :T

eslick

all US cities look terrifing when you see them on TV but they are all quite easy to drive around. Most drivers are like in other countries there will be good and bad ones just make sure that you concentrate and you will be fine. Try looking for a sat nav with lane assist, it helps you get into the correct lane, which will avoid you darting from lane to lane when slip roads appear on the left of the road against the right.

If you havent got a sat nav try here http://www.totalpda.co.uk/ they do good refurb ones and often they have US maps in them, or you could try ebay for a one someone has bought there and is now selling over here or if you have one try buying a US map from tomtom they are about £30-50