From Belize to Grenada: 10 Caribbean Beach Resorts to Visit Right Now
By Caribbean Journal Staff
There are different resorts for different vacations, different tastes, different moods. For some, there’s something delicious about a pint-sized, tiny Caribbean resort, where the emphasis is on the intimate, the serene. Where the soundtrack isn’t a piped-in DJ set, but the gentle shaking of palm trees.
At these 10 resorts scattered all over the Caribbean, you’ll feel as if you’ve discovered your own private club, personalized and exclusive.
Here are 10 to check out right now:
Laluna, Grenada Portici Beach in Grenada is set at the bottom of a long, winding hillside road, with the lovely shade of a grove of palm trees and a wonderful, secluded feeling. It’s also home to a funky, cool, unique little boutique hotel with just 16 rooms called Laluna. The property is a slice of the Mediterranean in Grenada, with a selection of rustic-chic cottages and some outstanding Italian-inspired food. It’s a hidden gem.
St Kitts’ newest hotel is a reinvention of the boutique hotel: state-of-the-art green energy tech, a pocked-sized but robust wellness offering (including cold and hot plunge pools) and the best restaurant on the island. That’s along with endlessly comfortable suites and a de facto private beach in its own little Kittitian bay.
Anegada Beach Club Even with just 28 rooms, the hotel devotees call ABC is really two hotels: one, a boutique beach resort, the other a collection of fabulous glamping tents perched right above the dunes on one of the British Virgin Islands’ best beaches. It’s the perfect way to explore one of the most beloved little islands in the region.
Turtle Inn, Belize While Francis Ford Coppola’s rainforest retreat in Belize’s Cayo District, Blancaneaux Lodge, may be better known, the legendary filmmaker also has a beauty retreat in Belize’s stunning Placencia. There are just 25 rooms, most either on the sand or just steps away, with thatched roofs and the kind of world-class gastronomy you get from a Coppola hotel.
Les Ilets de la Plage, St Barth We’ve stayed here more times than we can count, and this hotel remains the best-kept secret on the Caribbean’s most glamorous island. Just a handful of beach bungalows and hillside villas, Les Ilets is a friendly, warm, throwback hotel that takes you to a different, wonderful side of St Barth.
Let’s be honest. Jost Van Dyke needed a hotel like this. Finally, the beloved island famous for its beach bars has a legitimately cool place to stay, and it’s this boutique portfolio of toes-in-the-sand cottages that all come with their own private plunge pools. And yes, this is Jost, so it’s connected to the legendary Hendo’s Hideout bar.
LTC Grand Case Caribbean aficionados love Grand Case, St Martin. Once you go, you come back, and you keep coming back. It’s the food (without question the greatest concentration of fine-dining restaurants in the Caribbean, at least on one street), the people, the scene. And tucked away at the beginning of the boulevard is the LTC, a decidedly tiny hotel-restaurant that is perched right above Grand Case Beach, with sleek little rooms and spectacular food.
La Sagesse Grenada It’s been here seemingly forever: the La Sagesse Beach Hotel, just 12 rooms right on the sand on the sought-after La Sagesse in eastern Grenada. The family run hotel is celebrating nearly four decades on the island, with an intoxicatingly serene, rarefied location on an unforgettable beach. The on-site restaurant is great, too.
Bluff House, Green Turtle Cay, Abaco
Yes, the island is really called Green Turtle Cay, and it’s everything you imagine. White-sand beach, a little marina, a charming historic hotel, an exquisite beach bar. At the center of it all is the Bluff House, one of the first hotels in The Bahamas when it opened in the middle of the last century, and still an exemplar for what a tiny Caribbean hotel can be. Just make sure you have a Tipsy Turtle. Or two. For rates contact frontdesk@bluffhouse.com.
Karibuni, St Martin Okay, so this isn’t actually on the beach. But this hotel has a secret. The hillside hotel in the Cul de Sac area of St Martin has something even better, its own beach bar set on the offshore island of Pinel. Just call reception, tell them you’re on your way, and they’ll take you on their private boat to your own already-reserved beach chairs on Pinel, where you can spend the morning, afternoon or the whole day noshing on truffle tuna tartar and sipping on ti’ punch.
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