With its warm and turquoise waters, stunning beaches and globally famous nightlife, it’s little surprise that Miami is one of the world’s most enduringly popular yachting destinations. What’s more, the area’s proximity to the Caribbean islands make it a superb base for yachting adventures.
A small motorboat on the Miami waters in front of Bayfront Park (Photo: T. Ron Scott via Flickr / CC BY 2.0)
There are a huge number of cheap boat rental companies located in and around Miami. If you’re looking to charter a yacht here, we’ve done some research and picked out three of the best charter companies to be found, based on a range of factors including diversity of fleet, booking policies, and customer reviews.
Sailo
Once described by illustrious travel magazine Conde Naste Traveller as “The Airbnb of boats and yachts”, Sailo are nowadays a well-established name on the yacht charter scene. The company offers live availability for an impressive range of 30,000 bareboat and crewed yachts in destinations across the world that can be rented for 2 hours or 2 weeks. Users are able to search by location, number of guests, type and size of boat, price, and other relevant criteria, as well as communicate with the boat operator directly through the Sailo platform. There’s also the option to perform bespoke searches based on other preferences. When we searched for yacht charters in Miami, we found almost 300 vessels, including 24 sailboats and 19 catamarans, and in total 51 bareboat options are available, most offered and rented with captain, for 2, 4 or 8 hours. The cheapest yacht available is a 16-foot motoryacht starting at $312 per day.
Boatsetter
Founded in 2012, Boatsetter is a peer-to-peer company based in South Florida that connects yacht charterers with owners and licensed captains around the world. It claims to be the world’s largest online yacht marketplace with over 17,000 boats, including speed boat, power boat luxury boat and other options, in over 600 locations. Users can either make a request to book a yacht or message an owner directly for more information. As Boatsetter operates only as a middle man, they’ve put in place several policies that protect users on both sides, such as a minimum of $500 being held for each rental as a security deposit, and giving the owner the ability to cancel the rental if the renter fails to arrive within one hour of the charter’s agreed start time. When we searched for yachts available in Miami, we found hundreds of options, including around 30 sailing boats and more than a hundred bareboat vessels.
Boatbookings
Boatbookings are one of the largest and most reputable companies in the yacht charter sector. They have a total of 30 yachts available for charter adventures in Miami. Among their fleet are yachts ranging from 11 to 90-metres, 2 of which are offered as bareboat (no skipper or crew) and the rest as crewed yachts. Boatbookings also have 4 catamarans available for Miami charters, with cats being the most popular request from charterers. The website also has a dedicated reviews section, allowing visitors to read about the experiences of previous guests who have chartered through Boatbookings.