After several hurricanes, Irma in particular, devastated several Caribbean islands this past fall, I was unsure whether I'd do the "normal thing" and spend a couple weeks in the warmth of the Caribbean. Fortunately, however, the place I like to go, St. Bart's, is "open for business," so off we'll go. My kids will get there in December for
Jimmy Buffet's free concert and bring in 2018 with their friends. I'll join them after the New Year's celebrations; I prefer "chillaxing" and intimate gatherings more so than for 20-something-style bacchanalia. LOL
I've been to the Grand Caymans which was fantastic for snorkeling and scuba. What is it that you like about St. Barts? Just curious we may want to try some other islands.
To sum it up, I like that St. Barts is a place where folks appreciate and revel in what is there and what there is to do rather than bemoaning what's not. More specifically:
- People I know and enjoy spending my time with vacation there too. As with any place I go, for me, it's the company that makes the difference. Plus, it's always nice to go somewhere and bump into someone whom one knows from elsewhere in the world or someone whom one previously met there and can trade stories about what we've been up to since last we met.
- The overall chic sophisticated ease of everyone when they're there and everything that is there. It's a place visited and inhabited by people who are comfortable in their skin, or at least they become so when they are there. Nobody cares that one is sophisticated or suburban; what matters is that one is "good people." It's as though people discard their "armor" and just "are." Conversations with strangers are always interesting and devoid of artifice and ego.
For example, invariably I and/or my "regular people" friends/acquaintances have found ourselves bantering with "names you know" because someone quipped or remarked on something and conversation ensued, only to later find out that we just had a random chit chat about a hiking trail, food, a sporting event, or whatever with "so and so." It's not as though "rubbing shoulders" is sought, but rather that it's just nifty to encounter such people when they're just regular rather than "on."
- The absence of huge resorts and touristy anything. That too helps make St. Barts feel like one's neighborhood rather than a place where one is a visitor and it contributes greatly to the privacy about the place. I think the privacy has a lot to do with why normally guarded folks are so at ease there.
- Psychologically, I like that it was never part of the plantation system.
- Sailing around the island and taking the dinghy to a quiet beach for an impromptu picnic.
- The accommodations and the island at once serves one's desire for doing one's own thing without others being around and getting out and being a social person with other folks whom one can be confident want nothing but one's good company for a brief period.
- The restaurants; I've never had anything but outstanding food. The majority of the cuisine is French or heavily French influenced fusion.
- Does crime even happen on St. Barts? It's super safe. One need have no trepidation about letting one's kids go off and do their own thing.
- As for the island itself, there're 16 beaches, so there's lots of variety. (Make no mistake, though, in the abstract, Anguilla has better beaches.) great hiking amidst coral and volcanic landscapes as well as lush woods, which, IMO, make St. Bart's vistas unparalleled. Since there're not many food and drink establishments at many of them, it's something of a picnic when one is on the beach.
- Sometimes what I like is snorkeling with the turtles. Sometimes it's the glamor and crazy parties, though my kids like that more than I. Sometimes it's the relative solitude of the east beaches. Other times it's the hiking.
Are those things unique to St. Bart's? Not all of them, but as I suggested, the social atmosphere and people are by far the most appealing things to me. I can't use the
Cheers line "where everybody knows your name," but there are enough people there for me who do that going is always a hoot of a good time. Best of all, however, it's French and, as you may have gleaned from what I've written above, it's Frenchness pervades the place. It's like Nice in the Caribbean, and what's not to like about that?
If you prefer a Caribbean vibe, I'd recommend trying Anguilla before trying St. Bart's. Whereas St. Bart's is a trendy and glamorous place where not very-low key people go to be low-key, relative to their usual routines, but make no mistake, what constitutes low-key there isn't what most folks would call low-key. It's too glamorous and trendy for that. As I said, it's French, so while the ease I described pervades the place, it's still always sophisticated, albeit without the contrivance one finds in the U.S. and on the Continent.
Anguilla
is low key -- it's even sometimes called the Sleepy Island -- so if you seek "near total chill," as it were, it's a better base than is St. Bart's. That's the Caribbean thing. Also, though the food is great in both places, but I find a bit more variety and notably more Caribbean influences on Anguilla. Both locales are eminently enjoyable. It comes down to what one is in the mood for at any given moment. And besides, it's not as though one is confined to the island at which one takes lodging.
How would I sum it up? Whereas Cinque Terre is to Nice/Monte Carlo, or Amsterdam to Paris, or D.C. to Los Angeles, or Breckenridge to Aspen, is what Anguilla is to St. Bart's. Do you follow me?
