6 Caribbean Beaches to See Before You Die
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CARIBBEAN beach vacations sometimes get a bad rap. Too much monotony, the naysayers grumble. The only thing to do is lie on the beach, and they all look the same. But the Caribbean Sea -- with islands that are flat, mountainous, tiny and vast -- is specked with beaches that defy tropical conventions. There are beaches with gray sand, beaches with pink sand, those that seem to go on forever without any sign of human life, and others that hum with activity.
Below is a brief guide to some of the Caribbean's best beach spots, some sung, some unsung, but all proving that a beachgoing experience doesn't have to always look like what you see in Corona commercials.
British Virgin Islands Anegada
What better place to hit the beach than an island almost entirely surrounded by one? The 11-mile-long Anegada is one of the least visited of the British Virgin Islands, in part because it is so remote. Some 15 miles north of Virgin Gorda -- itself a backwater in the sparsely populated island chain -- Anegada is usually discovered by tourists in one of two ways: on a chartered day sail from a larger nearby island or by arranging a stay at one of the handful of hotels there. Unlike its rockier, volcanic neighbors, Anegada is a flat coral island where mile after mile of beach extends in undeveloped solitude. A walk from Cow Wreck Bay in the northwest to Loblolly Bay in the northeast is not great for people watching, but you'll see plenty of goats. If you make a rum punch pit stop at one of the bars along the beach, you'll see about as much commercial development as there is on Anegada.
HOW TO GET THERE Tour boat companies from Virgin Gorda and Tortola drop day-trippers on the island, or you can go on your own by chartering a small plane.
Barbuda Pink Beach
On Antigua, the larger, more tourist-trampled sister island to Barbuda, the promotional literature proudly notes that there are 365 beaches, one for each day of the year. But none of them can boast what Barbuda has: pink sand. Practically all of the western shore of the island is one continuous stretch of beach where you can glimpse occasional bands of pink sand. But the prettiest stretch in the southwest has been dubbed Pink Beach, named for its color. It's more a subtle conch shell hue than Barbie's dream house pink, and the bursts of color there often appear in bands, too, woven in with the white sand. Aside from the color, one of the rarest features of the beach, also known as Eleven Mile Beach, is how wide it is. While many Caribbean beaches are mere ribbons of sand, Pink Beach is the tropical equivalent of the Champs-Élysées. It is also remarkably deserted. It is possible to walk for miles and not see another soul.
First Published November 6, 2010 2:00 am
