On the north end of Miami Beach island, you’ll find the wonderful community of Surfside!
This is our favorite hidden gem. If I could pick up Surfside and bring it to a less hectic city, I would live here forever. (I understand some of the reasons that it’s great is because it has the nearby population to support the businesses.) Surfside is a small family-oriented town nestled between North Beach & Bal Harbour at the north end of Miami Beach.
Surfside is a residential town with a few hotels. Tourists are welcome; however, it is not designed to hold as many tourists as areas of Miami Beach like South Beach, Mid-Beach, North Beach, and Haulover State Park. Those towns have public restrooms for beach goers, as well as larger parking lots, playgrounds, beach rentals (kayaks, kite surfing, etc.).
Surfside features 1 mile of pristine sand beach from 88th street to 96th street. The beach was renewed in early 2020. The renovation nearly tripled the size of the beach. Surfside has a walking/jogging path along the ocean (the upper path) as well as a dog-friendly walking/jogging/biking path along the ocean (the lower path). These paths connect to paths at Bal Harbour to continue all of the way to the Haulover Inlet. The paths also continue south (as soon as you navigate through North Beach open air park) all of the way to South Pointe (9.5 miles one way) along the entire Miami Beach island!
There is metered street parking in Surfside, as well as small to medium sized public metered lots. From there, you can walk to the beach at nearly every major street. Most beach entrances have a public outdoor shower too, but there are not public restrooms. The town of Surfside has many restaurants, a Publix grocery store, CVS, liquor store, post office, and more, so you can grab breakfast, lunch, or dinner as part of your day at the beach.
Surfside, Bal Harbour, and Bay Harbor used to have more joint amenities, and are still very close knit. For example, the elementary school (rated 10/10) for the 3 towns is in Bay Harbor, as is the fire station. Surfside has it’s own police station though, as do the other two towns. It’s a very safe community, and the police are integrated into the town by being present and hosting events.