Before you start looking for a hotel in Miami, you need to know that Miami is huge. Hence, you need to decide what is your priority: price or location. If you are in Miami only for the weekend, you will probably want to stay on South Beach (SoBe) neighborhood where the prices are steeper than in the mainland city of Miami. On the other hand, hotels in Downtown Miami also don’t come cheap, especially in times of events like important NBA basketball game, concert or exhibition. Luckily, Miami offers good public transport options, so if you don’t want to spend a fortune for a decent mid-range hotel, search for hotels within a few miles range. One of very good choices is Vagabond Hotel Miami. We stayed there for 4 days in February 2020.

Location

Vagabond Hotel Miami is located on Biscayne Boulevard in Upper East Side, around 7 km from American Airlines Arena and around 11 km from Lincoln Road in South Beach. Lyft from Miami International Airport costs from 12 to 20 USD, depending on the time of the day and shared rides. The hotel offers free on-site parking for hotel guests.

Rooms

The hotel offers 42 rooms in 2 floors, most of them overlooking the pool. The rooms are very spacious and modern, with kitschy yet stylish décor and comfortable king or double beds. Bathrooms are open and well equipped, they come with excellent showers (both, rain and normal shower), hair dryer, toiletries and pool towels. The free Wi-Fi is working great, as well as TV with a variety of Cable channels. I did miss a coffee / tea maker, but both is available complimentary in the reception.

Breakfast

Complimentary continental breakfast is offered each morning and it is composed of toast and pastries, oranges, yogurts and some cereals. Not too many healthy choices, but at least they offer some variety. If you stay there longer and are used to rich breakfast, you might want to buy some of your groceries; and enjoy the free tea and coffee.

Pool and gym

Vagabond Hotel Miami has a great pool, one of the best I have seen in US motels. To be honest, this property does look a lot like motel, but let’s close one eye and pretend it’s not. 😉 The pool is quite large, and the setting is really nice, with lots of green area around it, as well as a really cozy bar where people stick around long after the sunset.

The hotel also offers gym, which we didn’t have time to use as we walked our asses off each day back and forth. We did use Lytf to move around but once you get to SoBe, you still do a lot of walking on Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive.

Anda’s rate: 9 from 10

Bottom line: If you are ready for a little compromise with the location, especially if you have your own car or rental, Vagabond Hotel offers very comfortable rooms and great service for the price. It is officially rated as 3 stars and if the breakfast was a little better, I’d give it a 10 with no hesitation.