Everett Potter's Travel Report

Abalone, one of the accommodations at Jakes, Jamaica

What’s the Deal: Jakes, one of Jamaica’s best kept secrets, is located in a quiet seaside resort in the fishing village of Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Their new “Family Getaway” is a well-priced deal offering 4 nights’ accommodation in a two bedroom cottage for a family of four.

What’s the Backstory: Jakes features 26 rooms in the hotel, 5 cottages and three villas, all with either garden or ocean views. Set in the relaxed beauty of Jamaica’s sandy south coast landscape, each of the colorful accommodations is uniquely designed. Jakes is also well off the beaten path: it’s two hours from Montego Bay Airport, one and a half-hours from Negril and a three-hour drive from the capital city of Kingston.

What are the Details: Four nights accommodation in a two bedroom cottage for maximum family of four. The package includes an Educational Trip to Galleon Beach Fishing Sanctuary with a stop at the white sand beach. It also includes a trip to YS Waterfalls, two private soccer class/ hair braiding class, and two Mosaic Workshops.

Fine print: $1,400 US excluding tax. Valid through December 14, 2013

Booking: Use code FAM Tel: (876) 965-3000 or http://www.jakeshotel.com/

Snorkeling in Aruba

Just returned from a weeklong vacation with 12 members of my family in Aruba. Blue skies every day, temperatures in the upper 80s, and that consistent tradewinds cooling things down on the fine white sandy beach. While there, we had the option to go on a snorkeling cruise for $60 per person. Then we realized we could rent a 12-seat van for $125 a day and snorkeling equipment for $15 per person, reducing the price in half and giving us the freedom to see the other sites around the island. Most of those snorkeling cruises head to Boca Catalina Beach, easily accessible by car on the northwestern tip of Aruba. Take the turn-off to the California Lighthouse and you’ll see a small parking lot on your left. Grab your snorkeling gear and plunge into the Caribbean Sea. Swim around the rocks and you’ll soon be surrounded by the neon-colored fish and a healthy dose of brain coral. Remember that the sun is hot in Aruba, so I always snorkel with a light T-shirt on, and bring a second shirt to stay dry on land. I learned my lesson snorkeling for an hour at Fiji’s Natadola Beach, only to return to shore looking as red as a lobster.

   Steve Jermanok As a columnist for National Geographic Adventure, adventure travel expert at Budget Travel, and regular contributor on outdoor recreation for Outside, Men’s Journal, Health, and Sierra, Steve Jermanok has written more than 1,000 articles on the outdoors.He’s also authored or co-authored 11 books, including Outside Magazine’s Adventure Guide to New England and Men’s Journal’s The Great Life. His latest book is Go Now! Put Your Life on Pause and See the World. He’s currently an adventure travel expert at Away.com and blogs daily at  Active Travels.

What’s the Deal: Four Seasons Resort Nevis is the only Four Seasons in the Caribbean. But getting to this lush paradise has always taken a lot of planning. Now that planning just got easier, thanks to two new non-stop flights by American Airlines from Miami to St. Kitts.

Why it’s a Deal: With added flights, the fall season is the perfect time for couples in search of seclusion and sunshine to enjoy a West Indian Summer or Weekend Getaway at Four Seasons Resort Nevis.  The AAA Five-Diamond Resort has extended its popular Stay Longer-Third Night Free promotion until December 15, 2012, inviting travelers to beat the holiday rush.  Rates start at $345 per night with the third night free with every two consecutive nights booked.

The Details: Starting November 16,, 2012, the new flights will be offered on Fridays and Sundays, enhancing the airline’s existing daily service between Miami and St. Kitts. American Airlines will use a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with 144 Economy Class seats and 16 Business Class seats. Four Seasons resort Nevis is a40 minute boat ride from the airport.

Booking: For more information on packages and activities at the Resort, call 1.800.332.3442 or visit www.fourseasons.com/nevis.

By Steve Jermanok

Unlike the rest of the Caribbean, the attraction in Dominica is not the beach, but a lush mountainous interior ripe with every tropical fruit and vegetable imaginable and inundated with so much water that around every bend is another raging waterfall, a serene swimming hole nestled in the thick bush, or a hidden hot spring to rest your weary body after a day in the outdoors. Indeed, this island closest to Martinique has become an affordable haven for the active traveler who yearns to hike through a jungle-like forest. My guide for a week of treks into the interior was Kent Augiste of Ken’s Hinterland Adventure Tours. The highlight was a 7-hour round-trip hike inside Morne Trois Pitons National Park to the crater known as Boiling Lake. We hiked through a dense forest of tall gommier trees, staring at the iridescent purple-throated hummingbirds as they kept us company. Afterwards, we lounged in the natural hot spring at Papillote Wilderness Retreat. Owner Anne Jno Baptiste first came to the island from the States in 1961. Eight years later, she bought a 7-acre chunk of land enveloped by the rainforest that she would cultivate into a flower-rich botanical garden and one of the Caribbean’s first eco-resorts.

Steve Jermanok As a columnist for National Geographic Adventure, adventure travel expert at Budget Travel, and regular contributor on outdoor recreation for Outside, Men’s Journal, Health, and Sierra, Steve Jermanok has written more than 1,000 articles on the outdoors.He’s also authored or co-authored 11 books, including Outside Magazine’s Adventure Guide to New England and Men’s Journal’s The Great Life. His latest book is Go Now! Put Your Life on Pause and See the World. He’s currently an adventure travel expert at Away.com and blogs daily at Active Travels.

The Lone Star, Barbados

By Ian Keown

“We have people come in off the beach and order caviar and a bottle of Chateau Lynch-Bages,” says Rory Rodger, manager of the Lone Star Restaurant on the fashionable Platinum Coast of Barbados.

Clearly, beach dining in the Caribbean has come a long way from the days when everything was grilled over charcoal on an upended steel drum.  Caviar, wraps and sushi now take their place alongside grouper Creole and beer from the bottle at driftwood shacks.  Today’s top beachside bistros come with tablecloths and quality china and often cater to expense-account executives who come in the front door while the sun-worshippers shuffle in off the sand.  Some of them are just so comfy and congenial the guests tend to hang out and make the restaurant their daylong base for fun in the sand.  “La Plage,” says owner Thierry de Badereau of his restaurant on St.Barths, “is a place where people come for lunch, stay through dinner, then go for a midnight swim.”

One reason for the upgrade in beachside dining has been the number of Michelin-starred and celebrity chefs who have decided to ship their talents from New York and Paris to the balmy Caribbean, as chef or owner or consultant.  The most recent high-profile example is the arrival of Jean-Georges Vongerichten on St.Barths to supervise cuisine at the ultra-chic Eden Rock, including Sand Bar, where the bikini-clad can now munch on whole wheat pizza with black truffle beside the island’s most photographed beach.

I’ve been tracking the shacks-to-riches story of Caribbean beach restaurants for more than quarter-of-a-century and after several calorie-defying missions to the islands I’ve distilled the possibilities to an elite selection that includes both the newsworthy and some longtime favorites.  Most of them have a few things in common: cover-ups are usually requested, except where the tables are set directly into the sand; they’re all open to the cooling trade winds – refrigeration is reserved for the kitchens; and they can all be entered directly from the beach – in other words, from towel to table in a few brisk steps across the sand.

Barbados, with its relatively prosperous executive class, has more than its fair share of these upgraded beach bars.  The Lone Star shares its white sands with luxury rental villas so you might find yourself  brushing past actor Hugh Grant or millionaire soccer stars.  A former garage (“Lone Star” was an early brand of petrol), it’s now a chic 4-suite hotel with a stylish dining pavilion decked with navy blue awnings, 24 ceiling fans and tables covered with double sets of cloths.  Thai Chicken and Blackened Dolphinfish share an eclectic menu with British/Bajan stalwarts like Leek & Herbs Bangers & Mash and Flying Fish Cutter.  The well-balanced wine list is sensibly priced — but that Chateau Lynch-Bages 2000 to accompany your caviar will set you back $820.  (246/419-0599; www.thelonestar.com; lunch 11:30-3:30 seven days a week; entrees mostly $14 to $28; spacious restrooms can double as changing rooms.)

An ideal location for lunch at Laluna, Grenada

On Grenada, Hotel Laluna brings a celebrity buzz to tucked-away Morne Rouge Beach (its cottages attract actors and fashionistas like Morgan Freeman and Jerry Hall) so the lunchtime pizza-and-sandwich menu struck me as something of a downer even for a thatch-roofed pavilion.  “It’s a lunch menu,” responds Italian owner Bernardo Bertucci, “if someone wants to order from the dinner menu, that’s fine!” Take him at his word and upgrade to Pappardelle Laluna or Thai Peanut Chicken Curry — they do more justice to the Richard Ginori china than a fish sandwich.  (473/439-0001; www.laluna.com; lunch 12-4, 7 days a week, year round; entrees $12-$24; showers, spacious restrooms).

La Plage, St. Barth's

Not surprisingly, St.Barthelemy is a prolific source of what the French call pieds-dans-l’eau dining with style and flair– but you may need a stiff cognac when you see the tab.  Restaurant La Plage, a tent-like setting right on the sands of iconic St.Jean Bay, serves up the kind of dishes you’d expect to find on the Cote d’Azur — Carpaccio de Betterave au Chevre and Feroce d’Avocat a la Langouste — each dish presented like a work of art.  Even the menu covers are color-coordinated with the pillows and cushions. (590/27 53 13; www.tombeach.com; open 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., seven days a week; entrees $30-$45; alfresco showers, spacious restrooms.)

Jacala, Anguilla

If the big news in beachside dining these days is the arrival of the estimable Jean-Georges on St.Barths, the newcomer that gave me the biggest charge is the new Jacala on Anguilla because it’s owned and managed by the former chef de cuisine and maitre d’ of the much-lauded but temporarily-shuttered Jo Rostang at Malliouhana Hotel.  Located on mile-long, restaurant-rich Meads Bay Beach, the building itself is an undistinguished, open-sided pavilion fronted with an open dining deck, so what makes Jacala so special is its polished service and refined cuisine. Jacques Borderon and chef Alain Laurent (hence, Jac-ala) both trained in some of France’s highest-rated restaurants and have now transformed their new beachside quarters into a French oasis with the kind of refinements that signal “class act.”  The butter is fresh (and chilled under silver toques, no less), breads are freshly baked, olive oil comes in dainty miniature cans and the presentation is meticulous.  Grilled Watermelon and Goat Cheese Salad drizzled with home-made balsamic dressing is a multi-tiered masterpiece of culinary refinement – and the perfect mid-day restorative.  Especially when topped off by a glass of Laurent’s home-made orange-flavored digestif.  (264/498-5888; open 10a.m. to 10p.m. Wed-Sun; entrees $12-$38; loungers and sunshades are “free for everyone, not just clients – we are not that kind of restaurant”; spotless restrooms are adequate for quick changes to cover-ups.)

Forget the sun, sea and sand — any one of these restaurants could lure me back to the Caribbean time and time again.

  Ian Keown is currently a contributing writer for Caribbean Travel & Life. Over the past 30-odd years his byline has appeared in Travel & Leisure (as a contributing editor), Gourmet (as contributing editor), Diversion (as contributing columnist), Departures, ForbesFYI, San Francisco Examiner, Worth and Opera. His guidebooks include his own series of lovers’ guides: Guide to France for Loving Couples, Very Special Places: A Lover’s Guide to America, European Hideaways and Caribbean Hideaways (which the Miami Herald called “the bible.”).   He is the recipient of the  Marcia Vickery Award for Travel Writing and the first Anguilla 40 Award for in Recognition of Outstanding Contributions to Anguilla Tourism.

Dominica

Let’s face it, the Caribbean pales in comparison to the South Pacific. James Michener was correct when he called Bora Bora the most beautiful island in the world. I would also add the Marquesas’ Fatu Hiva and its exquisitely beautiful Bay of Virgins to the list. Volcanic islands and their dramatic ridges covered with lush foliage rise dramatically from the popsicle-blue waters of the Pacific. You can skip through the papaya fields and pick the fruit. And the people, like the Fijians are the friendliest in the world, with a genuine curiosity, not staring at you as if you were a dollar sign. Dominica is one of the few islands in the Caribbean that comes even close to this ideal. Waterfalls are around every bend (and there are a lot of bends on these winding roads). It’s perfectly suited for the active lifestyle—hikers can climb to a lake that bubbles with hot volcanic water and rafters can glide down a mountainous stream in nature’s best version of a lazy river. Ripe passionfruit and guava fall from the trees, and the locals are laid back, not in your face trying to make a buck. Grab one on the 35 bungalows at Jungle Bay, built from reclaimed cedar wood and volcanic stone, and propped on stilts like treehouses in the jungle. Then get ready for a slew of naturalist-led hikes into the greenery, yoga classes, sea kayaking, signature coconut oil massages, or simply reading by the pool.
Steve Jermanok has been a columnist for National Geographic Adventure, adventure travel expert at Budget Travel, and regular contributor on outdoor recreation for Outside, Men’s Journal, Health, and Sierra. He has written more than 1,000 articles on the outdoors. He’s also authored or co-authored 11 books, including Outside Magazine’s Adventure Guide to New England and Men’s Journal’s The Great Life. His latest book is Go Now! Put Your Life on Pause and See the World. He’s currently an adventure travel expert at Away.com and blogs daily at Active Travels.

Calypso del Sol, St. John, USVI.

How can I speak the words “Caribbean villa” in these recessionary times? Well, “villa” covers a lot of ground, and in the Caribbean it can mean a cottage, a simple but comfortable house, a very big house, and even those beach side palaces that truly deserve the name “villa.” With a villa, you can take a dip in the pool at midnight or have breakfast and coffee with the songbirds at 5 a.m. You make the schedule, such as it is. And as we enter shoulder season and low season, the prices of a villa go down like low tide.

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Boiling Lake, Dominica

By Steve Jermanok

“Follow me closely,” says our guide Kent Augiste as we make our final steps down the steep flanks of Morne Watt into the so-called Valley of Desolation. The landscape is a study of contrasts, from the rock slides that create the barren brown slopes to our right to the green mountain ridges straight ahead that rise dramatically from almost every viewpoint in Dominica. At the moment, however, it is the white smoke billowing up from the scorching stream at our feet that holds my interest. The smell of sulfur is overwhelming and the sounds of foamy, gurgling water doesn’t exactly instill confidence in my footing. I’m on Kent like an avocado clings to its branch on this nature isle.

People flock to the Caribbean to sift their toes in the pearly white sands. But in Dominica, the attraction is not the relatively few beaches, but a lush mountainous interior ripe with every tropical fruit and vegetable imaginable, and inundated with so much water that around every bend is another raging waterfall, a serene swimming hole nestled in the thick bush, or a hidden hot spring to rest your weary body after a day in the outdoors. Indeed, this island closest to Martinique, has become an affordable haven for the active traveler who yearns to hike through a jungle-like forest, scuba dive and snorkel on living reefs, and sea kayak in sheltered coves with little if any boat traffic. Sure, you can still lounge with a good book, but it won’t be on an overdeveloped strip of sand. You’ll be high up in the hills on some small eco-resort balcony sipping fresh passionfruit juice and listening to the waves of the Atlantic crash onto the rocky shores below.

Dominica’s volcanoes might be dormant yet there’s still fire in the belly of this island. The Valley of Desolation was just one of the highlights on a 7-hour round-trip hike inside Morne Trois Pitons National Park. Kent led my climbing partner and me over muddy trails through a dense forest of tall gommier trees, used to make dugout canoes for 20 to 30 paddlers, and past the massive trunks and aerial roots of the banyan-like chatagnier trees, some more than 300 years old. As we made our ascent out of the darkness of the rainforest canopy, iridescent purple-throated hummingbirds kept us company as they stuck their heads into the tubular orange and red heliconia flowers.

At the far end of the Valley of Desolation, we climbed through chest-high vegetation along a river, then up and down a series of hills to finally arrive at the rim of the crater known as Boiling Lake. The second largest lake of its kind in the world, steam emanates from this cauldron of bubbling water where temperatures top out at 198 degrees Fahrenheit. “Don’t get too close to the edge,” said Kent as I peered down, wondering how many people met their demise in this unforgiving witch’s brew.

Kent Augiste works for Ken’s Hinterland Tours, an outfitter that specializes in guided hikes all over the island. Hiking boots and an experienced pair of legs are advised for the somewhat strenuous Boiling Lake trek.

Visit Active Travels

THE DEAL: Second or Third bedroom for free at Cap Maison, St Lucia

WHAT’S THE DEAL: Families who book a Villa suite, an Ocean-view villa suite plus pool or an Ocean-view villa suite with pool and roof terrace, will receive a second or third bedroom for free.  Kids under 12 always eat free when dining with their parents at the resort and, for added savings, the resort is extending four hours of free babysitting per day for families booking this special offer.

THE FINE PRINT: Winter rates for the one-bedroom Villa Suite, the starting room category for the Family Package, are $865 per room per night, based on double occupancy. The offer is good through  April 2011.

DETAILS: Cap Maison

THE DEAL: The new Anacaona Boutique Hotel, which opens October 15, will offer 27 rooms and suites from just $150 a night, based on double occupancy. Read the full story