What is the best way to get from Miami Beach to Miami?

It is minutes across a causeway, traffic permitting. That is the honest version — the number a map gives you is the version with no traffic, no rain and nobody else going the same way, and this route rarely offers all three.

There is no useful train and no sensible bus for this. Which leaves driving yourself, an app, or a car booked ahead. Driving yourself means parking at the other end and staying dry, sober and unbothered for the whole run. An app means standing at the kerb hoping someone accepts a long fare, and being repriced if they do not — the longer the trip, the worse that trade gets.

Both ends work off Miami International Airport, so if you are flying in for this it is one airport and one car.

Booked ahead, the car is yours for the whole run: one driver, one price agreed before it starts, luggage handled at both ends, and a car that waits if you are late rather than leaving. If you are going Miami and back the same day, the same car and the same driver hold the return, which is usually the half people forget to plan.

Miami eats late and dresses up. The strongest tables are spread across the water, a room in South Beach, a chef's counter in the Design District, a classic in Coral Gables, so a driver for the night lets you hold a reservation across town without hunting for parking. Most of these trips end up somewhere around South Beach, Brickell, Wynwood.