I am very sad. I'm leaving Miami Beach and I'm leaving a great group of friends I made there. Well, technically they left before me and I'm writing this the evening before I leave, but the first way I said it sounded more evocative.

I did the journey from my last stop at Orlando to downtown Miami with no problems. In fact the bus was very empty because it was a local schedule starting at Orlando rather than coming down from New York or anywhere. As I passed through Fort Lauderdale it rained torrentially and I really mean torrentially. Fortunately for me the bus got ahead of it by Miami and I was able to stand in the sun waiting for my taxi and very aware that I didn't apply any sunscreen that day.

My taxi got me to the hostel okay, although the traffic was very heavy once we got to Miami Beach. A note here about the geography of the place for anyone that doesn't know. Miami is a city on the south-eastern coast of Florida. Miami Beach is a different city and contained on an island just east of Miami, linked by five causeways. It's the cool place with the beaches and is the party zone. Miami by contrast is a business-like city (downtown at least), containing the second highest number of banks in the US after New York City.

I walked into the reception and overheard some English people discussing London postcodes so, as I was waiting to be served, I chipped in with the one I used to work in (EC4, Fleet Street). That was enough to be admitted to their circle once I'd checked in. Since there's a very good chance they'll be reading this blog entry I'll namecheck them and be very nice. We had: Sam, a Jack-the-lad from London; Debbie and Lindsey, two Stoke girls travelling together; Julian, an Englander living and working in NYC and Jessica, a German girl. That was my posse for the next four nights and three days.

The first night we got beer in, because this hostel allowed alcohol to be consumed on the premises, which is the first time I've come across that on this trip. There was also an all-you-can-eat BBQ and punch. The punch met with approval but we didn't feel there was enough meet to eat. So in protest we continued drinking the beer and getting to know each other. By 2:30am we had had enough so all but two of us went out for a pizza slice and then went to the beach to look at the stars and soak in the atmosphere. It was still pleasantly warm - enough to sit there in shorts and not be cold. We got back for 4am.

There had been a funny incident on the way to the pizza shop. After we passed an intersection we heard a kind of scrape and thud and, looking back, saw a moped flat on the floor in the middle of the street and a guy, also flat, not moving. There were cops sitting right there so they cuffed him and stood over him for at least two minutes not doing anything. He probably was driving under the influence and fell off but he still needed the medical attention he was not getting.

The following I explored the area and found it to be very hot and, which surprised me, totally full of black people. I had expected more of a racial mix. It turned out that Memorial Day weekend was Urban Beach Week here. So people of an urban lifestyle had turned out in droves and the whole area was packed with them. It was also full of police. Every single police officer in the Miami Beach force was on duty and they drafted in people from the Miami-Dade force and Highway Patrol. I didn't see any trouble myself and didn't feel in danger or under threat at any point but apparently there is a lot of crime during this weekend every year. The only thing I felt was that it was very crowded down on Ocean Drive, which is the main street down by the beach.

I can tell you that the reports of scantily-clad women are wholly accurate. On this weekend, in addition to that, we also had dozens of pimped-out rides. Although I'd never own anything that ridiculous and the owners only do it to get attention, I still thought they were pretty cool. It was funny to see them moving at a snail's pace too because the whole area was gridlocked because everyone had flocked to the area.

That evening my posse and I went out for dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant and then all but Jessica went on to Nikki Beach, which is supposedly a famous beach party club. I hadn't heard of it but it was very cool. Once you pass through the main bar/dancefloor area you pass out onto the sand where there are sofas and tables. There we regressed to teenagers and played Truth or Dare, which will explain some of the photos. It was a great place to hang out. That night I got to bed at 3am.

The following day I did some more ambling around the neighbourhood, which was still busy with urban partiers although it was slightly emptier, probably because it was Monday and some people needed to get back home to get to work the following day. I walked a little up the beach and went knee-deep in the Atlantic. The water was very warm and pleasant. On my two explores thus far I had seen all of the art deco buildings along Ocean Drive (behind the crowds of people) and they were fantastic but after I'd done that I did feel slightly that there wasn't much else to see in the area. That evening we ate, drank and were very merry. I got to see Ocean Drive at night with the buildings lit up in neon. Lindsey asked a complete stranger if she could have a ride on the back of his motorbike and then disappeared for at least twenty minutes for 'the ride of her life'. She used protection though - another biker's leather jacked and hemlet. It was late when we got back to the hostel and I got to bed at 2am.

Speaking of getting in late... I liked this hostel but the problem with staying at a 'party hostel' is that people have different bedtimes. In my dorm room (air conditioned, phew!) there were always some people in bed when I got in so I tip-toed around in the dark, feeling my way around. However, there were two girls staying there who always got in later than me, around 4-5am each night, and they turned the light on, clattered around with their belongings, talked at a normal pitch and laughed, which meant I was always woken up after I'd gone to bed. Also, on my first morning here, as other people were quietly getting up and leaving the room, they woke up and started making phone calls and talking loudly. So I didn't get one good night's sleep the whole time.

On my fourth morning here I was roused from my bed by one of the staff at about 10:30am, while I was trying to lie in, telling me someone was waiting for me in reception. I went out and was greeted with the sight of George, a girl I met on my trek last year. I'd seen on her Facebook that she was coming to South Beach so I messaged her asking if it was the same South Beach I was at and telling her where I was staying, and she turned up. This explains why the first photos of me and her look like I'd just got out of bed. I also started drinking Bud Light for breakfast. That was how the day progressed although I switched to water because I realised I hadn't had much since I'd arrived and was probably dehydrating. I also had to spend some serious time on the laptop that day booking my next stops, updating my blog for Kennedy Space Center and catching up with my email.

In the evening my posse and I (minus Julian who had returned to NY) met up with George for dinner. It was very good and I had a delicious peach bellini, which I'd never tried before. We dropped George back at her hostel on our way back to our one where we picked up beers and went down to sit on the beach on our last evening together. Again I got to bed at 2am. And again the same two girls crashed around later on that night.

For my last full day in Miami I had booked a trip so I had to get up at 8am, which I found very difficult. I said goodbye to my crew because they were all checking out before I returned. Nobody cried, which was disappointing. My tour took me out to the Everglades National Park where I went on an airboat ride - one of those boats with a giant fan at the back. I saw a few small alligators and some other wildlife. I also learned that the Everglades is actually a river that moves at between 0.5 and 1.5 miles per day. This is because Florida is so flat. For a part of the ride the guide gunned the engines and we flew down the water at quite a fast pace, taking turns like a sliding rally car. It was just like in the movies!

I took in a wildlife show where I saw a scorpion, skunk, cute baby skunk, baby crocodile, alligator wrestling and a parrot. We each got to hold a young alligator for a photo opportunity at the end. It was colder than I thought it would be and felt exactly like a soft leather handbag... Not that I own one of them.

After the Everglades I continued onto a bus tour around Miami. That was only okay because Miami isn't as exciting as other places I'd been. My highlight was stopping in Little Havana for a five minute stop and getting to sample Cuban coffee. It was delicious, very smooth and slightly sweet.

My posse, while being a great group to hang out with, were clearly a bad influence on me. Firstly, at the meal where I had the peach bellini we were given the wrong check but, since it was cheaper than our real one, we paid that one (including a tip) and left. I felt we taught them a lesson there to always get the right check for people. Secondly, on my own, in the middle of the bus tour we stopped at the bay for people to do the extra boat tour. At no point did the driver indicate that people who hadn't booked that section should hang out in the adjacent mini-mall and because no-one was checking anything I joined the line to board the boat, was given a ticket and got to ride it. It would only have been an extra $10 but I got it for free. Well, it's not like the boat didn't have any space for me.

The boat tour was worth sneaking on to because it went up Star Island where lots of famous people own mansions, including Enrique Iglesias, Will Smith, Madonna, Shakira, Shaquille O'Neal, blah blah blah. The only two I bothered snapping were the one owned by Al Capone and the one used in the filming of Scarface. On the bus tour we saw a few famous sights on Ocean Drive, including the building outside which Gianni Versace was shot, a resturant used in Scarface and a restaurant used in Casablanca.

When I got back to the hostel everyone in my posse had left, which was sort of lucky because then I didn't feel any pressure to go out in the evening because I really needed an earlier night and no alcohol. It was a bonus that the two annoying girls in my dorm had checked out during the day.

I've spent the longest time here of any place I've been to on this trip. And I have to say that without the people I met this would have been an okay place that I would've got bored of. I was very much looking forward to coming here but it didn't live up to my expectations. For one thing the restaurants and bars down Ocean Drive are about fifty metres from the sea because of the street and then a grass park and a sand bank, which meant no ocean views from any place. I had imagined straw-roofed outdoor bars right on the edge of the beach serving colourful cocktails. But because of the people I hung with this has been one of my top highlights so far. I hope I cross paths with them again somewhere on this giant continent. That's partly because two of them owe me a beer!

I had planned, during my long restful stay here to do a kind of status update blog entry. But I did fun stuff instead. So I'll tack a small one on the end here. If you don't already know I'm on a mission to visit all 50 states within my six month trip. As of right now in Florida I have done 20 in just under two months. That doesn't include the time spent in Washington DC (a federal district and not a state) or Niagara Falls and Toronto (both in Canada). I'm really glad I'm doing this 50-state mission because a lot of people I get talking to find it really fascinating and exciting, and I feel I get a little more interest out of them because of it.

Based on the numbers from the Greyhound bus website I have travelled 4581 miles by bus and spent just under 120 hours on or between buses, not including delays and time spent waiting before each journey (an hour or more in each case). The longest journey I've done is 16 hours although I'm about to beat that with a 25 hour journey to my next place out of Miami.

In all, I'm one third through the duration of my trip and am on track to hit all 50 states by the end, although Hawaii and Alaska will always remain in question until I get towards the end and know if I have the extra money remaining needed to get out to them.

I'm loving it and have totally forgotten what it is like to live a 'normal life'. To quote Lemon Jelly, "Some of us are cave dwellers, some of us live in houses, some of us like to be loose footed. I'm a ramblin' man."

Love life and stay safe everyone.