Miami to Vice City: a travel guide to the real places behind GTA 6's Leonida, and what Rockstar changed

My thesis, up front: Rockstar did not copy Miami. It dressed Miami. Every real place in Leonida has been taken in at the waist, given a new name and a better colour, and sent back out. That is a fashion process, and I read it the way I read a wardrobe. Where Rockstar has named a place, I say so. Where fans have matched a skyline to a trailer frame, I say that too.

I'm Ruby. This is the guide I would hand a friend flying into Miami who wants to see where Vice City came from, and the one I would hand a Vice City player who wants to know what Rockstar changed.

The county: Miami-Dade to Vice-Dale

Confirmed. Rockstar's site places Vice City in Vice-Dale County. The real one is Miami-Dade, which this week signed a $3.9 million deal to light its airport and port in Vice City colours and wrap its traffic boxes. The real county is advertising the fake one. Vox has the small print; I just enjoy the symmetry.

Ocean Beach: South Beach and Ocean Drive

Confirmed (the name and the look). Rockstar led its own site with Ocean Beach: pastel art-deco hotels along bright white sand. My match: that is Ocean Drive, South Beach, where the real art-deco district runs from 5th to 15th Street. Rockstar kept the pastels and the neon and, from the trailers, tightened the strip so every hotel is a hero shot. In the real one you walk six blocks for three good facades. In Vice City they are all good. That is the tailoring.

What to wear: linen, white, one loud piece. The Vice City Style set is this street.

Little Cuba: Little Havana

Confirmed. Rockstar names Little Cuba and describes Cuban-American detail and panaderías. My match: Little Havana, along Calle Ocho, with its cafecito windows and domino park. Rockstar's version, from the screenshots, is denser and brighter, and I expect its radio to come from Cocoteo FM. The clothes here are the most honest in the city: guayaberas, gold, nothing bought for a photograph.

The port and the airport

Confirmed. Rockstar describes the port as the hub of the city's cruise industry and the airport as modelled on Miami's. The real PortMiami is the busiest cruise port in the world, and Miami International is where your flight lands. Both will be lit up in Vice City pink by the county this November. In the game, Rolo will tell you the airport is where the getaway planning ends.

Downtown, the arena and the marina: community labels

Not confirmed. The glass towers and elevated highways seen from the air in Trailer 2 look like Brickell; the arena on the water looks like the Kaseya Center, where the real Welcome to Vice City sign went up in September; the quieter waterfront of boats and jet skis looks like the marinas off Biscayne Bay. Fans call them Downtown, Sahara Arena and The Marina. Rockstar has named none of them. Our districts page keeps the two lists apart.

The Keys: the Florida Keys

Confirmed. Rockstar describes the Leonida Keys as a bridge-linked island chain south of the mainland, where Jason lives and the smuggling happens, with a heyday long past. My match: the Overseas Highway from Key Largo to Key West, which is exactly that, minus the smuggling, mostly. The look is faded: salt-bleached timber, boats worth more than houses, iguanas in the road. Rockstar changed nothing here because nothing needed changing.

Grassrivers: the Everglades

Confirmed. Sawgrass wetlands crossed by airboat, thick with alligators, houses on stilts. The Everglades, whose Seminole name is roughly "grassy water". Rockstar translated it and kept the alligators. Bama's wildlife guide has the full cast.

Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, Mount Kalaga: north of Miami, and mostly guesses

Confirmed (the descriptions), not confirmed (the real places). Rockstar describes Port Gellhorn as a faded Gulf Coast beach town of cheap motels; Ambrosia as an industrial town around a sugar refinery, run by a biker gang; Mount Kalaga as forested highlands and a national park. Fan matches: Panama City Beach, the sugar towns around Lake Okeechobee such as Clewiston, and the forests of north Florida. Florida has no mountains, so Mount Kalaga is the one place Rockstar invented outright. I like that it did. A state built only from real places would be a map; this is a story.

What Rockstar changed, in one line each

• Compressed the good bits. Ocean Beach is Ocean Drive with the gaps removed.
• Kept the poverty. Port Gellhorn and the Keys are not flattered.
• Added altitude. Mount Kalaga gives Leonida a north Florida never had.
• Renamed everything, changed nothing that mattered. Little Cuba is still Little Havana. You will know it by the coffee.

If you go

Fly into MIA, look up at the lights, drive Ocean Drive at dusk, eat on Calle Ocho, take the Overseas Highway until the road ends, and come back through the Everglades on an airboat. That is Leonida, south to north, in two days. Then on November 19 do it again from your sofa and tell me which one dressed better. My opinion: the game.

Six has how to get around Leonida once you are in it. Our map has every confirmed place.