VacationSelector

Fort Lauderdale or Miami?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Fort Lauderdale
45
match

Wins on nature & day trips and year-round weather with your weighting.

Miami
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on sights concentration and good for families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Fort Lauderdale if you want the sea at the end of the street and open country within reach: the beach starts at the centre, and 20% of the surrounding land is protected.

Choose Miami if you want more of everything else: far more beaches to pick from, a much wider choice of kitchens, more to drink and dance to, and theme parks for children.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

Fort LauderdaleMiami
Beaches & swimming. Miami leads by 11 points.11
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score8495
Swim season months1212
Beaches 10 km720
Coast distance0 km1 km
Water distance0 km1 km
Places to eat. Miami leads by 20 points.20
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score4565
Restaurants within 2 km of centre371898
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1829
Museums & heritage. Miami leads by 3 points.3
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score2023
Museums within 10 km1428
Museums within 2 km of centre66
Share of museums within 2 km %4321
Unesco sites within 50 km00
Nightlife. Miami leads by 16 points.16
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score3450
Drinking venues within 4 km259538
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre144287
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %5653
Nightclubs within 4 km1863
Nature & day trips. Fort Lauderdale leads by 9 points.9
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score8172
Protected land share 50 km %2016
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5148
Park area within 2 km45 hectares50 hectares
Good for families. Miami leads by 25 points.25
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score1944
Tourist attractions within 2 km214
Park area within 2 km45 hectares50 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km02
Sights concentration. Miami leads by 42 points.42
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score042
Notable places within 2 km245
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Fort Lauderdale and Miami are level on 43.
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score4343
Price level global100100
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. Fort Lauderdale leads by 2 points.2
Fort LauderdaleMiami
Score7674
Monthly daytime high24.2 °C to 32.3 °C24.7 °C to 32.7 °C
Monthly rainfall55 mm to 219 mm47 mm to 267 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Fort Lauderdale is the more outdoor-leaning of the two. 20% of the land around it is protected against 16% around Miami, and the sea is 0km from the centre rather than 1km.

Miami has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, more bars and many more nightclubs, and 2 theme parks within reach where Fort Lauderdale has none.

Where they are alike

The weather works the same way in both. Daytime highs run about 24-32°C across the year, the sea stays at 21°C or more in all 12 months, and neither has a month at 40mm of rain or less.

Museums are a minor part of either trip, and neither has a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach. Both also have similar park space near their centres, so green space close in is not what separates them.

Which traveller are you?

Travelling with children, Miami is the clearer choice: many times as many attractions near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach, where Fort Lauderdale has none. Park space close in is similar in both.

If eating out and late nights shape the trip, Miami again: considerably more restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, more places to drink and many more nightclubs, with more notable places within walking distance.

For beach days and open country, Fort Lauderdale holds its own: the sea is 0km from the centre and 20% of the land around it is protected, though Miami has 20 beaches nearby against 7.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible here. There is no daily budget figure for either city, and the value axis rests on a national price level, identical for both by construction, so it tells you nothing about which trip costs more.

Sunshine hours are not recorded near either city, so the monthly ratings rest on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone, and that side of the weather is simply unmeasured. Strong beach numbers also hide a timing problem: the sea is warmest at 30°C in August, which is also among the wettest months in both, at 198mm in Fort Lauderdale and 242mm in Miami.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Fort Lauderdale
24
26
27
29
30
31
32
32
31
30
27
26
Miami
25
26
27
29
31
32
33
33
32
30
28
26
Sea temperature, °C
Fort Lauderdale
25
25
25
26
27
28
29
30
29
28
27
26
Miami
25
25
25
26
27
28
29
30
29
28
27
26
Rainfall, mm
Fort Lauderdale
55
59
57
72
159
219
166
198
202
144
91
73
Miami
47
55
63
85
157
267
186
242
259
193
90
62
Daylight, hours per day
Fort Lauderdale
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Miami
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Fort Lauderdale: 1991-2020 normals, Fort Lauderdale (7.1 km from centre). Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Fort Lauderdale is at its best from November to March, with highs of 24-27°C and rainfall of 55-91mm. It also stays the drier of the two through the wet season: September brings 202mm against Miami's 259mm.

Miami's window is much the same, December to March, when highs sit at 25-27°C and January is the driest month of its year at 47mm. Sea temperatures are identical in both, peaking at 30°C in late summer, so choosing a summer trip is a question of rain rather than swimming.

Getting there

Flying fromFort LauderdaleMiami
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
2 h 40 m
€140-271
1 stop
FLL · 7 km
2 h 45 m
€205-247
MIA · 7 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
3 h 0 m
€167-168
FLL · 7 km
3 h 0 m
€202-362
MIA · 7 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
2 h 55 m
€119-159
FLL · 7 km
2 h 55 m
€143-193
MIA · 7 km
WashingtonIAD, DCA
2 h 25 m
€164-177
FLL · 7 km
2 h 25 m
€127-180
MIA · 7 km
HoustonIAH, HOU
2 h 30 m
no fares
FLL · 7 km
2 h 30 m
€103-188
1 stop
MIA · 7 km
AtlantaATL, PDK
1 h 45 m
€93-112
FLL · 7 km
1 h 50 m
€97-175
MIA · 7 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
2 h 45 m
€133-174
FLL · 7 km
2 h 45 m
€144-205
MIA · 7 km
MadridMAD
9 h 0 m
€522-631
1 stop
MIA · 41 km
9 h 0 m
€522-631
1 stop
MIA · 7 km
NassauNAS
1 h 0 m
no fares
FLL · 7 km
1 h 0 m
no fares
MIA · 7 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
15 h 30 m
€891-1074
2 stops
MIA · 41 km
15 h 30 m
€891-1074
2 stops
MIA · 7 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureFort LauderdaleMiami
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m2 m
Main airportFort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL)7 km from centre125 non-stop destinationsMiami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre199 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureFort LauderdaleMiami
City population182,760442,241
People per km²1,8293,046
Museums within 10 km617
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Distinct cuisines in the centre2539
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fort Lauderdale or Miami somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.