Lesley Abravanel
City Expert
I came to Miami reluctantly in 1990 when my parents insisted I go to the University of Miami because it would improve my social skills. I was a nerd in my suburban Long Island high school with dreams of becoming a club kid a la the Macaulay Culkin movie “Party Monster”. Thank goodness they dropped me off in Miami. After studying journalism and cultivating the most excellent social skills, I moved to the burgeoning area of South Beach where the likes of Madonna and Sly Stallone were partying. I worked as assistant editor of a classical music magazine during the day and at night, I was doing the Slaves of New York/Bright Lights Big City house scene while writing my own weekly gossip column for the Miami Sun Post called “Nocturnal Admissions.” Enter the travel biz: Porthole Cruise Magazine, a consumer cruise ship mag out of Ft. Lauderdale, lured me into the biz by making me managing editor. I cruised the world for three years and then decided to disembark on a career of freelance. At that time, Frommer’s called, asked me to write the South Florida book and the rest, as they say, is history---almost 16 years of it, really, in which time I've authored Frommer’s Florida, Frommer’s South Florida, Florida for Dummies, and Time Out Miami. When I’m not writing travel, I am writing gossip columns: two for the Miami Herald, one for the illustrious supermarket tabloid, The Globe -- oh, yeah, and a nightlife column for the Herald called “Velvet Underground”. Miami is, after all, a celebrity playground, and if it weren’t for them, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.
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