Along with Atlanta and Dallas, Miami is hailed as one of major cities of the "New South," meaning that it is an expanding, progressive Southern city with a growing global influence. One of the reasons for this is the vast cultural diversity which exists in Miami, due largely to foreign immigration into the city over the last several decades. This has contributed to building Miami's vivacious music and club scene, considered by many to be the liveliest in the country. If you're clueless about where to go and what to do in the Miami scene, look to Craigslist to lend a hand.



Craigslist is a network of sites for communities throughout the United States and around the globe. The Craigslist network helps connect people for things like garage sales, apartment subleases, job interviews, and even romantic encounters. Formed in 1995 as a network for just the San Francisco Bay Area, Craigslist boasts over 450 sites worldwide as of 2006. Each site represents a different U.S. state, Canadian province, or global city. This huge growth in just over a decade was managed with a staff that never exceeded 24 people. With a few exceptions, advertising on Craigslist is free, and postings are organized into various major categories and subsections for easy browsing and navigation.

If you are in Miami and faced with impending boredom, a good first step toward staving it off is to head to Craigslist Miami (http://miami.craigslist.org) and begin browsing the "community" section. In particular, you may want to start in either the "activities" or "events" board. The activities board typically contains smaller, more individual or pair activities. For instance, you can find someone looking for a swimming partner, or someone posting to find volleyball players to field a tournament team. The events board is where you'll find some of the club happenings, among other things. Just a quick glance at the events calendar yields some apparently entertaining prospects such as a "belly dance spectacular" and a "Bjork costume party." These are just the tip of the iceberg for events in Miami.

Perhaps you are into something more low key, or even would like to learn a new skill while you keep yourself busy. For that, there is the "classes" board. Here you can find about myriad types of classes being offered in Miami, from salsa dancing to American Sign Language to voice training. No matter which method seems most appealing to you, they are all great ways to do something exciting and fun while meeting new people around South Florida.

There are numerous other offerings within the community section of Craigslist Miami. There are boards dedicated to advertising group meetings, assembling car pools, finding child care, and even a section to help reunite lost items and pets with their owners. Each of these is worth a look, if for no other reason than to teach you some more about the great city of Miami and the people and happenings within it.