The best July events in Miami

Little Havana's street party and gallery walk, Viernes Culturales, happens every last Friday of the month along Calle Ocho from 8th to 27th Avenue. Running strong since 2000, it celebrates Latin culture with an old-school pachanga, featuring art exhibits from over 30 local artists, an artisan market at Domino Plaza, live music, and dancing in one of Miami's most famous cultural hubs. Dr. Paul George's free Little Havana Walking Tour begins at 7pm from the Historic Tower Theater for anyone who wants the deeper history alongside the party.

Every Tuesday, Miami Ironside turns into a game night and hobby destination. The evening starts at 6pm with a two-hour beginner Mahjong class led by Mahjong Club Miami. At 7pm, Board Game Night takes over Ironside Café for a relaxed stretch of strategy and company that runs until 11, with a guided chess class running alongside it for anyone looking to pick up or sharpen the game. Also on the Tuesday rotation: a Capoeira experience blending movement, rhythm, and Brazilian cultural tradition, and ArtSIDE Night, an art and wine evening for the more creatively inclined. Pick one or wander between them.

Jon-Paul Wheatley started making soccer balls during lockdown in St. Louis, teaching himself leatherworking from scratch after his tech startup collapsed. He's since designed balls for Adidas, FIFA, and Burberry, and two of his designs appeared on the cover of EA Sports FC 25. His studio, 12 Pentagons, is built around one premise: the soccer ball as a design object. Fresh off a run at Bal Harbour Shops, his Badly Drawn Ball concept moves to Bal Harbour Village Beach at monumental scale — a 50-panel, irregularly constructed ball built from over 5,000 community submissions of people trying, and largely failing, to draw a soccer ball from memory. The most common mistakes, pentagons touching and warped panels, were distilled into a single 3D object. On view through July 27 with the Atlantic as its backdrop.

Summer in Miami is for melting away any stress, and self-care is never more accessible than during Miami Spa Months. Whether your skin is feeling a little parched from the heat, all those Pilates classes have you pining for a massage, or you’ve been meaning to try out that cute new medspa down the street, July and August are prime time to get out and explore all of the top Miami spas participating in the annual summertime promotion.  Some of the best hotel spas in Miami Beach, Brickell and Sunny Isles have signed on this year, along with boutique medspas and facial spas from down south in Coral Gables up north to Aventura. They’re curating special treatment menus for the occasion, with luxurious experiences priced at $109, $159 or $199. Beyond all the amazing massages, facials and body scrubs, most of these spas sweeten the deal even further with access to amenities like steam rooms, saunas, resort pools and beaches, plus complimentary parking, welcome drinks and more.  Availability varies, but a majority of the Miami Spa Months deals are offered daily. Just be sure to book in advance, as the best time slots tend to get snapped up quickly. For a full day of discounted indulgence, get acquainted with the Miami Spice Restaurant Months, which overlap with Spa Months in August. 

The ICA Miami is devoting its third floor to the first U.S. museum survey of Harmony Korine, the filmmaker behind Spring Breakers and Kids who has spent three decades confounding and captivating audiences in equal measure. Perfect Nonsense brings together over 50 works spanning film, painting, photography, collage and drawing, tracing a career that has always resisted easy categorization, from his early Southern gothic explorations to recent films shot through gaming engines and iPhone footage. Korine has lived in Miami since 2015, and the city is woven into his recent work in ways the exhibition makes tangible. Beyond the films most people know, the paintings are the revelation here — particularly the "Twitchy" series, which combines iPhone-captured images with painterly techniques into something genuinely strange and new. The exhibition will be on view through October 4.

A rotating exhibition in the historic Film Room of Deering Estate's Richmond Cottage turns a spotlight on three women whose writing and advocacy helped define South Florida: Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Mabel White Dorn and Natalie Newell. Curated by Martha Betancourt and on view through September 30, the show draws on historic books and botanical volumes from the Deering Collection alongside loaned materials to trace how these figures' work intersected with the region's natural and cultural preservation. Douglas needs little introduction, but the exhibition is as much about surfacing her lesser-known contemporaries as it is about honoring her. The exhibition is included with your Deering Estate admission. 

Every third Thursday, Lincoln Road transforms into an open-air gallery crawl in step with Miami Beach's Culture Crawl. Participating galleries open their doors with new exhibitions, artist meet-and-greets and giveaways. Postcard maps, QR codes and signage along the promenade make it easy to navigate. The permanent outdoor sculpture collection gives you plenty to take in between stops. Highlights include Ignacio Gana's Chocolate Girl, an ode to womanhood cast in gold; Philippe Katerine's inflatable pink figures perched Where's Waldo-style along the strip; Ruben Robierb's sweeping Empower Flower; Oscar Esteban Martinez's fragmented portrait La Herencia Viva; and Gillie and Marc's wildlife sculptures scattered across the promenade.  And if you're already on Lincoln Road on March 19, stick around: the ninth annual open-air tango season kicks off at the Euclid Oval from 6–10pm, with free lessons led by professional instructors followed by three hours of social dancing under the stars.