Category Archive: Caribbean

Orient Beach, St. Martin

Earlier this year, while on a Royal Caribbean cruise on board the Oasis of the Sea, we had a port of call in St. Martin/Sint Maarten. The island is owned by two nations – France, which owns around 60% of the island, and the Netherlands, which owns about 40% of the island. During our port of call I was able to visit both sides of the island, an item on my bucket list, and I’m also considering it visiting two new countries (although, yes, I’ve been to both France and the Netherlands, I’m just not splitting hairs about this). This photo is from Orient Beach on the French side of the island, arguably the most well known of the nude beaches on the island, and is a popular stop on cruise shore excursions as well as for general island visitors. […]

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Curacao: A Caribbean Island with a European Edge

It’s hard not to fall in love with a tropical island.  Even more so when that tropical island has the kind of energy that makes you want to stay on your Caribbean holidays indefinitely.  Try Curacao; it’s the perfect Caribbean island (a part of the Netherland Antilles) about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela and it’s Dutch, still Dutch after all these years.  The island is also part of what is commonly referred to as the ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.  Another plus, Curacao is out of the hurricane belt, which means no hurricanes during hurricane season translating into the fact that your vacation won’t be ruined if you visit from June to October. Curacao is not your typical island in the Caribbean either since it feels very European and, for lack of a better word, magical.  A […]

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Celebrate Crop Over on Barbados

It might seem like just a summer long party, but the Barbados Crop Over summer festival has serious roots dating back to the 1700’s.  The festival was originally a celebration of the end of the sugar cane harvest — at a time when Barbados was the world’s largest producer of sugar.  Gradually, as the sugar production declined on the island so, too, did the Crop Over festival, but was then revived in the 1970’s as a summer long festival.  Visitors from around the world head off to Bridgeport for a Barbados holiday to celebrate and enjoy the second largest party in the Caribbean.  The main festivities occur in July, but are bookended by other activities, making it a festive island to be on all summer long. Here are a few activities that may tempt you: Ceremonial Delivery of the Last […]

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10 Things to Do in the Dominican Republic

As much as I might try to ignore it, here in Seattle the weather is starting to feel more like fall than summer.  Seattle usually has great Indian summer weather, but once we hit winter it’s definitely the time to start thinking about getting out of town.  If your get-out-of-town preference leans toward the island sun and sand, give a thought to heading east (instead of west) and visit the islands in the Caribbean. While much of the news of the recent past has surrounded the post-hurricane plight of Haiti, the other side of that same island (Hispaniola) remains a beautiful, unspoiled tropical paradise and is home to the Dominican Republic.  That’s right, Hispaniola is two countries on one island, and while travelers may not be as familiar with the Dominican Republic as they are with Haiti, it is the […]

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10 Reasons I Want to Visit Barbados

I’m trying to come up with a warm weather vacation spot for this fall.  Since it’s been awhile since I’ve been to the Caribbean, I thought this might be a good time to plan a return trip.  Barbados, an island that I’ve not yet visited, is looming at the top of a pretty short list. Here are 10 reasons why I think visiting Barbados may be a good choice for me: I haven’t been there before, and visiting a new country takes me a step closer to the Century Club. It’s a small island, only about 14 by 21 miles, with over 70 miles of powdery, white sand beaches.  Plenty of great spots to pull up a lounge chair and spend some quality time. Sun year round.  Over 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, in fact.  And that means year […]

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