If you like sports and know baseball, you might try to attend a Major League Baseball game in either Tampa or Miami. The Miami Marlins just built a new stadium, it's close to downtown Miami, you can take public transit to get there, and they have a variety of food that reflects Miami's Hispanic roots as well as traditional hot dogs and Cracker Jack (caramel popcorn). Afterwards you can go to Calle Ocho (SW 8 St, Miami) and get a feel for the flavor of the area, which is favorable to walking, with many restaurants serving delicious Hispanic food, and is also a shopping destination. The Seyboldt Building downtown is one of the oldest high-rises in Miami and has many jewelers, if you are looking for something.
The city of Miami is different from Miami Beach, which is on a barrier island across Biscayne Bay from Miami. If you left the Marlins baseball stadium on the light rail transportation, and headed towards the downtown area, which is east towards Biscayne Bay, you will arrive at Bayside marketplace, which has many places to eat, and lots of shopping. My favorite place to eat there is Los Ranchos, a central american restaurant that serves a delicious variety of steaks and seafood.
If you want to visit one of the most popular restaurants in Miami Beach, go to Joe's Stone Crabs, at the south end of Miami Beach. Be forewarned, it's expensive. It has delicious seafood, which admittedly you can probably find comparable food elsewhere, cheaper, but it's where presidents and movie stars go to dine when they are in Miami. It's one of those things, you're back in the Scandinavian countries, and someone asks you where you spent your vacation, and you respond, "we visited Miami Beach, and ate at Joe's Stone Crabs," if they have ever been here, they will know exactly what you did, if they have been there themselves.
https://www.joesstonecrab.com/
Miami Beach is a great place to visit for people-watching, you just may see some movie stars, or people who are 'famous for being famous,' like the Kardashian rash of attention-grabbing sisters. Fashion photographers daily use the background of Miami Beach for fashion shoots, and you can't walk down the street without seeing many model-types, strutting around, being beautiful, and waiting to be discovered. The main beach road is South Ocean Drive, which is pedestrian friendly, and renting bicycles or inline skates is a popular way to tour the area.
Now, an economical choice to eat in Miami: there is a chain called Palacio de los Jugos, which is cheap, compared to Joe's and which has an amazing variety of food, Spanish dishes, and you will be very hungry by the time you walk through all the food displays, behind which stand the servers waiting to heap onto your plate whatever you choose. Here is their site in Spanish, listing all the locations.
http://www.elpalaciodelosjugos.com/ and more info in English:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/el-palacio-de-los-jugos-miami
Another popular chain of local restaurants is Pollo Tropical, flame-roasted chicken is their specialty, traditionallly-served with black beans and white rice, and fried plantains, caramelized, a bit crunchy, and sweet after cooking. Order a chicken and a half, for a family, and 2 or 3 side dishes, I recommend the above, and try the fried yuca, a root vegetable, an alternative to american french fries, and good tasting by itself. Or if you want to try the side serving of sauce for the yuca and the chicken, I recommend the curried garlic sauce, served in small plastic containers, figure 1 or 2 per diner, dip your forkful of chicken (or a fried yuca) into it, and enjoy.
http://pollotropical.com/home-page
If you like boating, you can rent a boat and spend a half-day or full day on Biscayne Bay, (or the Atlantic ocean) which has beautiful scenery, and you can just stop the vessel and dive overboard to swim. Along Rickenbacker Causeway which goes from Miami to Key Biscayne, you can pull the boat up to the shoreline, and spend time swimming there. Key Biscayne is where President Nixon had his "Southern White House," and he vacationed here frequently. There is also a large park on Key Biscayne, Crandon Park, which has an old light house, and lots of beach to hang-out on, swimming, and enjoying Florida life. I suggest bringing your own food if you go there, as dining choices are very limited. There are public grilles for cooking, but they often get claimed quickly once the park opens.
http://www.miamidade.gov/parks/crandon.asp
Key Biscayne also has the Miami Seaquarium, which has interesting displays of marine life, and which has been in business for decades. Ever see those pictures of someone standing still, with their arms outstreched, and colorful tropical birds resting on them? This is one of the places where you can do that.
http://www.miamiseaquarium.com/
Coconut Grove is a Miami neighborhood right on the shore of Biscayne Bay, and is a good place to spend a day, or part of a day. It's very 'walkable' and there are many places to dine, from casual/inexpensive, to $$$. The CocoWalk area
http://www.cocowalk.net/ has a lot of shops and places to dine, even a multi-screen movie theater, and the people watching is fun. Park the car at one of the public or private places, and get out and walk. From there, you can go down the hill to Biscayne Bay, and walk along the water. You will see a rich variety of boats and yachts, old and new buildings, and eventually will arrive at Monte Trainer's Restaurant,
http://www.montysrawbar.com/ which serves a good variety of seafood, and is next to the docks where people keep their boats, many of which are 'liveaboards,' people live on their boats.
If your wife likes upscale shopping, I suggest a trip to Coral Gables, very close to Coconut Grove, and visit Merrick Park
https://www.shopsatmerrickpark.com/en.html
which has high-end shopping, many places to dine, and is also good for people-watching.
Close to Merrick Park in Coral Gables is Coral Way, another pedestrian-friendly area which is undergoing renovation right now, but the stores are all open, and there are many places to dine, from $ to $$$.
I like Tap 42 which has a variety of on-tap craft beers.
https://secure.opentable.com/r/tap-42-coral-gables?cmpid=poi_page_referral
Another good restaurant is Seasons 52, which my wife and I like to attend.
http://www.seasons52.com/locations/fl/coral-gables/coral-gables/4509
A short way from Coral Way (also known as SW 23 St) still in Coral Gables, is one of my favorite restaurants. it's the Titanic Brewery. They make their own beer there, and I recommend the Mahi sandwich, delicious white fish also known as dorado or dolphin (the fish, not the mammal). I like the Triple Screw IPA beer. The restaurant is one-half a block from the University of Miami, a private university which has beautiful grounds and their baseball stadium is almost next-to the Titanic. Their baseball season is over now, a bit of a disappointment as they broke their string of 44 consecutive appearances in the national collegiate baseball playoffs, the longest string in any sport for NCAA championships. Next year.
You should also consider an airboat trip with one of the providers to enter the Everglades national park. The Seminole Indians have a reservation in the Everglades, and the Billie Swamp Safari is a popular Everglades airboat trip.
http://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/listing.a0t40000007qtJyAAI.html
Keep your hands in the boat! The alligators are very close.
If you want to get away from it all, consider a trip to the Dry Tortugas national park, a bit of a trip away from Key West, but it has some unique history in the country.
https://www.nps.gov/drto/planyourvisit/guidedtours.htm
And now, one just for fun, a visit to a flea market in Ft. Lauderdale, the Swap Shop. Owned by auto racer Preston Henn, who just died, it's a location where you can bring your garage-full of unwanted possessions, and sell them, there are also permanent vendors selling everything from tools, to housewares, to luggage, to clothes (new & used), almost anything, really. It also happens to have a car museum, with a collection of Ferraris which may just be one of the best & most-valuable, anywhere. No kidding. Henn raced endurance races all-over the world, hired some of the world's best drivers, and was an eccentric multi-multi-millionaire.
http://floridaswapshop.com/ My advice is to arrive early the morning you want to visit, I can almost guarantee everyone in the family will find something they can purchase. Food is available there.
If you are an experienced swimmer, you can swim in the Atlantic Ocean out to the coral reefs, probably the only place in the USA, here and points south, that you can enjoy seeing their bountiful beauty. Be aware, you will need scuba gear, or mask, fins, and snorkel (much cheaper), and a dive flag to safely do this. You can also search for places where they will charter an event for you and equipment is supplied, but I suggest stay-away from using scuba if you are not already certified. Diving on a coral reef in Miami or south of here is one of the greatest things you can do, as far as doing something you will recall for a long time, and where you will see spectacular scenery, including barracuda, rays, schools of thousands of colorful fish swimming by, and yes, maybe a shark. John Pennekamp Park in the FL Keys has good excursions for this, but usually if you have a dive flag, you are allowed to go right off a swimmer's beach into the Atlantic ocean to the first, second, or third reefs offshore.
http://pennekamppark.com/ FYI coral reefs are only in the Atlantic ocean, and are
not found in the Gulf of Mexico (the west side of Florida).
Florida is long, narrow, and filled with interesting places to visit. You can be in the wilderness of the Everglades, on guard against alligators and venemous snakes, or in the heart of urban living like Miami Beach and Miami. I personally don't have any desire to spend time in Orlando, except when having the grandchildren visit, to attend Walt Disney World, Bush Gardens, Sea World, or any of the other central Florida tourist attractions. My suggestion is to make a lst of things the family and you like to do, and then do an internet search with 'florida' included in the search. You are sure to find many interesting things to do. I came here to visit, and decided I liked it here more that where I was living, and decided to stay. The fact I came from the snow belt, Michigan, in January may have had something to do with that. Also, you can ride motorcycles year-round. Enjoy your time in my adopted state, I'm sure you will enjoy yourself.