I might be in South Florida for 2 days in September. Where is a good place to stay and be a tourist? I'm looking at places within two hours of Miami. Fort Lauderdale? Key Largo?
Miami has can be pretty spotty. If you see a bunch of police cars around the perimeter of a ritzy area, you don't want to stray outside that or you could end up in gangland pretty quickly. Part of Coconut Grove looked like a hangout for millionaires, but you could walk a block or so from there and quickly start to wonder how you ended up in a third world country.
I love going down to the keys! Its not very exciting, but its great if you are looking for something relaxing and low stress. Fort Lauderdale is really spotty. It goes from nice to ghetto quickly.
I drove from Miami to Key West 20 years ago and remember thinking the area between Key Largo and Key West was a little ghetto.
My vote would be for Key West if you can push the driving distance out a bit. The food down there is amazing. Actually nearby Stock Island which is where the fishing boats unload everything has even better food. It’s the freshest seafood you can get. Lots of history and stuff to see. It has a good bar scene. It’s also pretty wild. You can wander down the wrong alley and end up at a drag show or surrounded by gay leathermen in assless chaps. That’s happened to me a couple of times. Key West is basically a gayer version of New Orleans in an island setting.
I was in Colorado last week. Denver and Boulder. It seems like a pristine region untouched by pollution. I was surprised by how rural Denver was. I had a great time as a tourist. I always like to image what it would be like actually living and working in the places I visit. Probably could use more industry but that would ruin the pristine conditions that made it desirable. The rents were out of whack too. Up to $2500+/mo for rent in Denver for a small rural city. Not sure what suckers are paying those rates. I was once again shocked by the homelessness out west (Texas, Colorado, California). I guess it's just too cold and expensive to be homeless near NYC. I would've thought it was too cold in Colorado as well. It's very jarring to my daily reality.
I've had friends tell me the same thing about being surprised by the rural sprawl of Denver. It's both smaller and bigger than you think. But the area does seem pristine compared to a lot of other places. I think it's in part because of the open spaces. Colorado has always fought to keep open space between cities and counties. Sometimes land holders hate it because they can't sell their property. Boulder has always been beautiful and stupid expensive. It started as a hippy retreat in the 60 and has since always been the most liberal spot in Colorado. Even when Marijuana was illegal they never enforced the law there. I was literally in a court house many years ago where I saw police scolding a young lady for having pot. They made her toss it in a garbage can and let her go. The home prices there have always been a joke. This little 1920s home goes for $1.5 million dollars. Rent in Colorado is nuts. My wife works for a apartment company and the rent for a small apartment is now way more than my mortgage for a house. Like you, I said no one will pay $2000 for a 2 room apartment, but the place filled up and they are building more properties as fast as they can. I think my property value, and taxes, have been going up about 15% per year. The Front Range is the new Seattle Tacoma area.