“Ada’s having a YogaFest. Let’s go to Anguilla!”
My suggestion was not as simple as it sounds. Anguilla was not an easy country to get to, especially from Barbados, even though it was less than 500 miles away. During Covid, Ada had to fly to Grenada, catch a ferry to Carriacou, then sail on a friend’s boat to Anguilla. I’d looked at going to visit her but flights involved either island hopping (26 hours, 3 transfers) or going to neighbouring Saint Martin via New York or London. Even when American Airlines started a direct flight from Miami, it meant going to Miami, with poor connection times turning 7 hours of flying into an almost 24 hour trip. You don’t even want to know the price.
It changed this fall, when Caribbean Airlines instituted a weekly direct flight from Barbados to Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of Saint Martin island. Ada assured me that the ferry ride was short and frequent. She had come to Barbados with her new baby and I’d visited her when we were in London. A YogaFest on Anguilla? Of course!
And so last December we headed to a country that had been voted “World’s Leading Luxury Island Destination” at the World Travel Awards.
At first it didn’t seem that special. Yes, the beaches were impressive, but so are many in the Caribbean. The island is small— 26 km long by 5 wide, with a population of about 15 thousand. It’s coral and much flatter than neighbouring islands.
What I found so different was how isolated everything was. There were no local streets or busy beaches for strolling. All the visitors were in their cliff or beachside villas, in their all-inclusive or at least very exclusive resort. That privacy is an important attribute should not have surprised me in a country that is a tax haven, whose main economic drivers after tourism are offshore incorporation, management, banking and insurance.
Instead of the tropical, colonial heritage architecture seen on so many other islands, here many resorts and villas were starkly modern and geometric. Anguilla is a British Protectorate and although the Eastern Caribbean dollar is the official currency, I didn’t see anything except $US dollars, both on menus and in transactions. Only government services and jobs use ECD.
Of course, it’s not all ultra-exclusive. We stayed on the beach in a more reasonably priced, West Indies style resort. We traveled to Anguilla on a public ferry full of locals with their packages. We ate on the decks of local restaurants where the food was delicious, but not gourmet. We adventured on our own to remote beaches on roads where I was glad to have 4 wheel drive on our borrowed local vehicle.
We participated in some of the “lifestyles” however! The Villa where we did yoga was spectacular, with more staff than guest places. We had a picnic on the beach that has me drooling just thinking about it, as well as world-class sushi. When we left Anguilla, we took a private speedboat, where uniformed crew served us drinks as we travelled directly to a dock by the airport.
Should you go to Anguilla? If you want to be spoiled in a tropical paradise, most definitely. If you want to experience local culture, perhaps look to one of the other Caribbean islands.
Brave Travels 