Category Archives: Caribbean

5 Spring-Break Tips for a Rejuvenating Beach Vacation

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The beach at Grace Bay in Turks & Caicos is magnificent. Photo© Laurel Kallenbach

Time for a break! Winter-weary travelers seeking a sunny, healthy recharge on a tropical island need look no farther than the luxurious Regent Palms Turks & Caicos on the Caribbean island of Providenciales. Here’s how it stacks up as a relaxing, revivifying destination—whether you’re traveling with your sweetie, BFFs, or kids.

Tip #1: Bliss Out on a Beautiful Beach

Nothing’s more restoring in winter than a sun-kissed beach. The Regent Palms is located on Turks & Caicos’ Grace Bay, consistently rated among the best beaches in the world. It’s got white sand—miles of it to walk or jog on—and a barrier reef a mile or so offshore that creates a naturally sheltered area with calm water. Oh, the color of that water! If you like water that changes from luminescent light-aqua into ultramarine blue the deeper you go, you’ve found paradise.

Tip #2: Chill by the Perfect Pool

Yes, resort waiters will deliver food and drinks to the beach, but sometimes nothing beats hanging by the pool. The Regent Palms’ serpentine infinity pool offers gorgeous ocean views; a hot tub; and Plunge, the pool bar/restaurant that offers in-water tables so you can sip and beat the heat!

Tip #3: Rejuvenate at a Holistic Spa

If you want to shed stress and nurture your skin with all-natural and organic treatments, get thee to a spa! The world-class Regent Palms Spa offers innovative treatments—including a conch-shell body polish and a bamboo massage—created from Asian and Caribbean healing traditions. Just reclining in the spa’s outdoor lounge and looking at the tranquil reflecting pool shaves 10 points off your blood pressure.

The outdoorsy spa at the Regent Palms is centered around a gorgeous reflecting pool lined by private treatment cabanas (the white buildings that flank the pool. Photo© Laurel Kallenbach

Tip #4: Lounge in a Luxurious Room

Vacations are all about catching up on your shut-eye. Everything about the rooms and suites at the Regent Palms Turks & Caicos says “relax”: from the spacious bathrooms with all the amenities to the fluffy beds to the daybeds on the balconies. Plus the bougainvillea-draped property is beautiful to wander through.

Tip #5: Eat Healthy, Delicious Food

The Regent Palms' courtyard is colorful with bougainvillea, which brightens the indoor/outdoor restaurant, Parallel 23. Photo ©Laurel Kallenbach

You need to eat right—even on vacation! Parallel 23 restaurant at the Regent Palms serves innovative fine cuisine, and the resort sources about 40 percent of its ingredients organically. The spa has a separate menu that includes light but flavorful fare. And here’s another idea: Sign up for a cooking class and take home some of the chef’s healthy cooking secrets.

Eco-Efforts

Island life always makes people aware of resources. The people at the Regent Palms take care to conserve where they can, including:

  • Kitchen food-scrap composting
  • An organically grown kitchen garden for herbs and tomatoes.
  • Rainwater collection for use in watering the landscaping.
  • The resort recently installed new air-conditioning controls that adjust automatically to minimize A/C use when guests leave their rooms.
  • Switching to energy-saving bulbs as current ones burn out.
  • Bottled water is widespread among guests, and recycling all that plastic is difficult on an island. However, the hotel management is investigating ways to recycle plastic bottles.
  • The staff participates in island-wide clean-up crews that collect trash on land or that washes up on the beach.

—Laurel Kallenbach, freelance writer and editor

The serpentine pool at the Regent Palms Turks and Caicos Photo © Laurel Kallenbach

 

 

Luxury Beach Resort Has Caribbean Eco-Style

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Doing nothing is everything at Carlisle Bay, an eco-minded luxury resort located on a quiet tropical beach on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

Carlisle Bay resort on Antigua is a heavenly Caribbean getaway that makes point-worthy green efforts.

If you want to relax in an unspoiled natural setting, be waited on hand and foot, get pampered in a first-rate natural spa, dine in sophisticated restaurants or under a palm tree on the beach, and make no decision harder than whether to order a rum punch or a piña colada—then Carlisle Bay is the place for you.

Part of the exquisite Campbell Gray Hotel collection, Carlisle Bay holds a silver certification by EarthCheck, an organization that validates the carbon claims and sustainability initiatives of tourism operations.

Carlisle Bay's Ocean Suites give you a cool, Zen-like interior for an elegant stay.

Here there’s luxury with a healthy helping of the outdoors: You’ve got beautifully appointed rooms with comfortable air conditioning, but all you need to do is step onto your private balcony or walk 15 yards to the white-sand beach and you’re surrounded by bird song, exotic flowers, coconut palms, and nonstop views of the bay’s turquoise water.

Do Nothing, Do Lots

For a place where you can perfect the art of flopping on a beach chair under an umbrella, Carlisle Bay offers a surprising number of activities.

There are water sports—as well as yoga classes—at Carlisle Bay beach.

There’s morning yoga and Pilates in a gazebo—or sunset yoga over the water on the pier. You can go sailing, snorkeling, paddle a sea kayak, or take out one of the resort’s Hobie cats. You can hike with a local guide through the rainforest to pick mangos. And there are tennis courts and a tennis pro to coach your backhand.

Blue Spa lets you unwind in simple elegance with an assortment of treatments from body wraps to facials, to excellent massages. The spa uses the all-natural Spanish line of Natura Bissé skincare products.

With all these great, active items to put on your agenda, however, don’t skimp on the sheer joy of doing nothing on one of Antigua’s most remarkable beaches.

Carlisle Bay’s beach attendants bring coolers filled with cold water and serve drinks from the bar, afternoon tea (ask for the fresh-baked shortbread!), and an assortment of salads and sandwiches for lunch.

If you just can’t leave the beach, why not have the staff set up a dinner table under a palm or on the pier?

Luxury for Families, Too

Kids have fun at this family-friendly resort.

Carlisle Bay manages to provide a luxurious location that’s perfect for both romantic getaways and family vacations. They’ve accomplished this by locating most of the family suites at one end of the resort and the Ocean Suites on the other.

The Carlisle Bay’s Crew Blue kids’ program keeps kids occupied with fun, educational activities such as banana picking, limbo dancing, and Hobie cat lessons—letting moms and dads have some quiet time together

Carlisle Bay’s Sustainability Efforts

Social responsibility:

  • hires staff from nearby communities
  • local outreach programs, including donations, to the community

Carlisle Bay resort sits unobtrusively within the natural landscape.

Environmental measures:

  • guests encouraged to place a green sash on their bed when they do not wish to have linens changed
  • use of local, seasonal and sustainably-grown food whenever possible
  • low-flow showerheads and sink faucet aerators
  • dual-flush toilets in some rooms
  • energy-saving CFL lighting
  • motion sensors on outdoor lights (and they’re adding them into bathrooms as well)
  • recycling of bottles, plastic and kitchen waste,
  • rainwater catchment
  • reuse of office supplies
  • biodegradable pesticides to control insects
  • treating sewage water for reuse on landscaping
  • energy-efficient air compressors for air conditioning

—Laurel Kallenbach, freelance writer and editor

Photos courtesy Campbell Gray Hotels

The pool at Carlisle Bay

3 Reasons I Love Yoga on a Tropical Island

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On any given day, yoga makes me feel alive in body, mind and spirit. I’ve found, however, that doing yoga in a tropical setting adds color to my practice. I’ve had the pleasure of taking a yoga class in several exotic places, and there’s nothing like hearing the instructor say, “Turn your head toward the waves,” instead of “Turn toward the mirror.”

Here are some of my other discoveries about doing yoga outdoors:

1. Turks & Caicos: Contemplate Infinity by the Ocean

While practicing Warrior pose and gazing over the ocean, I can’t help but gain some perspective. How tiny I feel compared to the endless sea and sky!

Regina Radisic teaches a sunrise yoga class overlooking Grace Bay at the Regent Palms Turks and Caicos. Photo copyright Laurel Kallenbach

The spa at the Regent Palms Turks & Caicos holds sunrise yoga classes at the beach. The morning I was there, a shower passed through right at the 6:00 a.m. starting time. We waited under an umbrella by the pool, then did yoga on the boardwalk overlooking the beach rather than putting our mats in the wet sand. We were rewarded partway through the class by a rainbow on the horizon.

2. Jamaica: Revel in Your Senses

Everything seems more alive when you do yoga outdoors: the color of the water and tropical flowers, the scent of flowers and salt in the air, the twitter of exotic birds, the feel of the breeze on my face.

Jacqueline Sheehan leads a class in the garden pavilion at Bromley Estate in Jamaica. Photo copyright Laurel Kallenbach

On Jamaica, at a guest house and retreat center called Bromley, yoga classes were held in a garden pavilion, surrounded by bougainvillea and other flowering trees and shrubs. During Savasana, I couldn’t help but open my eyes when a doctor bird—a hummingbird with long tail feathers—buzzed nearby. The same thing happened when the Bromley dogs, who were fascinated by our Fish Poses, stopped by to lick our faces.

 

3. Antigua: Move in Different Ways

Sunset yoga is held on the dock at Carlisle Bay resort in Antigua. Photo copyright Laurel Kallenbach

When the yoga environment changes, you adapt—which takes you out of your usual box. At Carlisle Bay resort on the Caribbean island of Antigua, I joined the sunset yoga class on the dock right over the water. Boat Pose took on a whole new meaning as I imagined myself buoyed by ocean water. (I think I even held this asana longer because I felt that water was holding me “afloat.”)

Because of the movement of the gently lapping waves around me, balancing poses such as Tree Pose or Dancer’s Pose were more challenging than usual. Even when I closed my eyes, the sound of waves created the sensation of motion.

As the sun dipped closer and closer to the horizon, our small class did gentle Sun Salutes to end the day. The sky turned a hundred shades of pink.

Now that’s the way to do yoga!

—Laurel Kallenbach, freelance writer and traveling yogi 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines: An Ocean-Lover’s Green Guide

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Though I’m grateful for the snow and frozen rain we received this past weekend in Colorado, I’m dreaming of islands in the Caribbean. So, I thought I’d revisit a trip a few years ago to visit gorgeous, eco-friendly places in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The black-sand beach and lush forest of Petit Byahaut solar-powered eco-resort. (photo courtesy Petit Byahaut)

The black-sand beach and lush forest of Petit Byahaut solar-powered eco-resort. (photo courtesy Petit Byahaut)

Caribbean beaches that aren’t crowded with hotels and condos are rare. Fortunately, the little-known island chain of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is—at least for now—laid back, conservation minded, and lightly developed. (And if you’ve seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, you’ve gotten an eyeful because St. Vincent and some of the Grenadines were the film location.)

PETIT BYAHAUT ECO-RESORT, ST. VINCENT

No roads, no phones, no TVs, no walls: What does solar-powered Petit Byahaut have? A gorgeous black-sand beach, friendly folks, outdoorsy tropical atmosphere, and gourmet meals.

Swiss Family Robinson: This getaway for nature lovers has just five accommodations: roofed, open-air wooden platforms with screened bedrooms (no bugs, tree-frog lullabies) tucked into forest gardens.

Responsible tourism: Petit Byahaut offers low-impact operations, solar electricity and solar hot water, employment for local staff, rainwater storage and an artesian well.

Fun in the sun: There’s no lack of outdoor activities here: Sea kayak to bat caves; snorkel or dive just off the beach; hike the rainforest or La Soufriere volcano; or grab your binoculars to spot bananaquits, doves, sandpipers, and the endangered St. Vincent parrot. In addition, you can accompany the chef to the local market for fresh produce and seafood.

Info: Pronounce it “Puh-tee Bye-ah-hah.”

BEQUIA ISLAND

Volunteers at the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary raise hawksbill hatchlings and release them into the wild when they're grown.

The Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary raises hawksbill hatchlings and release them into the wild when they’re grown.

The beaches are beautiful on Bequia (pronounced “Beck-way”), the most colorful and artsy of the Grenadines with its pastel, gingerbread-trimmed buildings and model boat-making cottage industry.

Don’t miss the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary run by Orton “Brother” King, an old salt who raises hawksbill hatchlings on Park Beach and releases them as three year olds when they have a better chance of surviving to adulthood.

SALTWHISTLE BAY CLUB, MAYREAU

Hidden among the palms on a semicircle of powdery white sand, Saltwhistle Bay Club is a charming collection of double-suite cottages and thatched structures hand-built of local “bluebitch” stone on tiny Mayreau (pronounced “My-roe”).

There are no TVs, phones, or air conditioning to distract from the cool tradewinds and turquoise waters.

The restaurant here is fantastic—a cluster of outdoor, Caribbean-style round stone tables and benches where you can sit back in your swimsuit and watch the water while dining on the superb seafood specialties. Visitors from around the world tend to congregate each evening around the beachside bar.

Saltwhistle Bay Club is a small-scale resort that boasts water catchment, employs twenty locals, and supports local fishers.

The Tobago Cays

The Tobago Cays (photo courtesy Tobago Cays)

TOBAGO CAYS

This breathtaking, uninhabited cluster of islets is a national marine park that attracts visitors to its coral reefs and white-sand beaches. Fishing, jet skis, and dinghy anchoring aren’t allowed, yet the Tobago Cays‘ fragile ecosystems have suffered from tourism and neglect. Visitors are encouraged to urge the government to protect, not develop, this area.

PETIT ST. VINCENT ISLAND

If only all exclusive, pricey hotels were as sustainable as Petit St. Vincent Resort. Secluded stone cottages (made of local bluebitch rock) with fantastic Caribbean views are scattered around this privately owned island, where the staff literally waits on you hand and foot.

All the cottages at Petit St. Vincent overlook the ocean.

All the cottages at Petit St. Vincent overlook the ocean. (photo courtesy PSV)

An organic farm provides fresh produce, and the resort recycles, composts, and collects rainwater—important because water is more precious than rum on this dry island.

—Laurel Kallenbach, writer and editor