Not a soul on Twin Bay Beach, Eleuthera, Bahamas

Plan the Ultimate Beach Vacation

Last year I publicly posted some pictures of a vacation I took with my family to a remote Bahamian island. After many requests from friends, I promised to write a blog about how we find these locations and plan our vacations. I’m not a travel writer (though I’d LOVE to be…Ahem! Conde Nast traveler), so I never wrote it, thinking to myself: ”what does this have to do with wellness?”

Then I realized that these vacations have everything to do with my “wellness” – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. A vacation can act as a goal, reward, a way to reconnect with loved ones, and it’s just plain awesome to have something to look forward to! There’s even scientific research showing that planning a vacation makes you happy and is good for your health! And the planning phase is half the fun!

The breathtaking Red Rock area of Dominica.

Planning the ultimate beach vacation means knowing what you want

A “great beach vacation” is subjective and dependent on individual tastes and desires. A lot of people would hate the vacations we go on. Sure, the photos are beautiful, but this kind of vacation isn’t for everyone.

The information that follows will NOT help you plan the ultimate beach vacation if…

You just want to sit next to the pool and read. Plenty of people just want to sit, have a cocktail, and catch some rays on a vacation! There’s no shame in that! But there’s no need to go the extra mile or spend all the extra money to get to a remote location if all you want to do is park it and do nothing!

You like to party or be super social. Outlying islands and remote locations don’t tend to be big on the party scene. If you enjoy nightlife, crowded beaches, and socializing, you may want to consider a different kind of vacation.

You like to shop. There simply isn’t enough tourist traffic in many of these more remote locations to keep shops profitable. If shopping is high on your list of vacation enjoyment, these tips won’t help you have an enjoyable beach vacation.

You like fancy or Americanized restaurants. Once again…there simply isn’t enough cash flow to keep most restaurants going in these types of vacation spots. Most of the “restaurants” are hole-in-the-wall kinds of places and roadside stands. And you never know what will be on the menu on any given day…or if they’ll even be open!

Red Stripe with a view. The rental unit we found on Jost van Dyke, BVI, had a spectacular view…and was spectacularly difficult to get to: 3 plane rides, and two ferries…and we managed to make every connection, which is almost unheard of! Whew!

You can’t handle occasionally being uncomfortable. If you’re travelling to the tropics, it’s hot, muggy, sandy, and sometimes buggy. Rentals and restaurants often don’t have bug screens or A/C. Sometimes the water in a rental unit isn’t heated. When travelling to remote locations, be prepared to be uncomfortable from time to time.

You struggle with being flexible and unscheduled. Toss your carefully-planned schedule of activities out the window. On these islands and other remote locations, things are not going to happen on your timetable. Service is often very slow in restaurants. Shops may not open until 10 or 11 AM, and are often closed on weekends. You may get stuck for 45 minutes while all the streets are closed for a funeral procession. The restaurant you planned to go to may not be open. If this bothers you, stay stateside or go somewhere that lends itself to tightly scheduled activities.

You have young children. Until our kiddo was about 8 years old, we chose to make these vacations “couples only”. It’s not worth the extra money and hassle of getting to a remote location if you can’t fully experience it. And the reality is, young children will prevent you from seeing everything you came to see. To really explore and experience these locations, you must be able to walk long distances, withstand heat and sometimes bugs, and it’s often not easy to find “normal” food.

You can’t afford it. I realize not everyone can afford a vacation like this. Some can’t afford any vacation for that matter. Your situation is what it is. If you can’t afford it, don’t go. Never put a vacation on credit! What you can do is create a goal and start saving. Save for as long as it takes – even if you only save a few dollars here and there over the next 10 years! You will get there eventually!

My main goal on vacation: to see as few people as possible. We hiked several miles to find this deserted beach on St. Croix, USVI.

Tips to plan the ultimate beach vacation

Plan to spend…which means planning to save. Our beach vacations typically cost between $6,000 and $8,000. That’s total, not per person, and includes airfare for three people. Still…Ouch! But don’t let this turn you off! It can be done cheaper (more on that below). We simply put so much value on the experience of a vacation, that we are willing to make do with less STUFF at home. Daily Starbucks habit? Kicked it. I can make coffee at home. Dinners out 3 or 4 times per week? Whittled back to just once per week. (Better for the waistline anyway. See! Vacation is making me healthier!) New couch or dining room table? The old ones are good enough. If you really want an amazing vacation, be willing to cut back on unnecessary expenses at home, and be willing to spend the money to get the vacation you really want. I promise you won’t regret it!

Start planning 12 months ahead. This is especially important if cash is tight because it will give you time to save enough to cover the cost. Most rental houses require that you put half down to reserve, and you can typically do this up to 12 months advance. I love reserving our accommodation 12 months ahead because it puts dates in my calendar and it gives me nearly a year to cover the rest of the cost of the vacation. If budget is very tight, start pricing everything out and plan two years in advance. You won’t be able to buy airline tickets or rent a house this far in advance, but you can get a baseline idea on total cost and begin saving! If you don’t plan ahead, you’ll never set aside the time or money to do it!

View of an uninhabited Bahamas out-island from the plane.

Be flexible and pay attention to dates. If cost is a big factor affecting your vacation decisions (like it is for us), flexibility is key. My daughter’s spring break is in March. Right in the middle of spring break “high season”. You will pay top dollar for rentals and airline tickets, no matter where you go. For that reason, our next trip to the Caribbean will be in late April. Yes, we are pulling her out of school for a week. But our accommodations are nearly half the price and airline tickets tend to be cheaper too.

Just buy the f@cking plane tickets and/or put down the deposit on a rental house/apartment/condo. This is how I operate: when I want to go somewhere, I follow my 12-month planning rule, I do some research on the location, I find a house to rent, and, most importantly, I put down the deposit. Ten times out of ten, I find a way to pay for the rest of the vacation within the year! Too many people don’t pull the trigger because they worry about the final cost. Put down the deposit or buy the damn tickets. If you started your planning 12 months in advance like I told you to, you’ll find a way to pay for the rest of it.

We often rent a house more than a year in advance. The view from our rental house on Bequia Island, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

How to have an amazing vacation

Research, research, research. Unless we are headed to a previously visited location, our planning actually starts more like 15 months out. Once we have an inkling of a place that interests us, we start researching it. What is there to do? How remote is it? How do we get there? How long does it take/how difficult is it to get there? Is it safe? Do we need a passport? Will it cost more or less than a typical trip? What kinds of accommodations and amenities are available? When is the best time of year to visit? Will we have cell service? What’s the local currency? What are the people/local culture like? What’s the history of the area? What do we need to avoid or be concerned about? We buy travel books, read hundreds of reviews, and look at all the tourism websites and photos we can find.

Avoid cruises and all-inclusives. Don’t hate me for saying this, but cruises and all-inclusives are a giant waste of money. Cruises and resorts may be “cheaper”, but there’s a price you pay for being cheap. On a cruise, you’re pretty much at the mercy of the float schedule, you get dumped in the worst possible areas (dirty cities, crowded beaches, panhandling tourist meccas), and you never actually get to see or experience the real culture of any one place because you only have about 6 hours in a port. They herd you around like cattle if you pay for one of the ridiculous excursions, and being on the ship is boring, unless you like to gamble and drink a lot. All-inclusives are kind of the same. You’re stuck. Tied to the resort. You paid for all that booze and food, so you never get out, drive around, and experience what the area has to offer. If you like cruises and all-inclusives, or if you just want to park yourself in one spot and read a book, that’s okay! Do what you love! But don’t expect to see spectacular locations and beaches like this one…

Go somewhere safe. To have a spectacular vacation you will be out and about, driving around, mingling with locals, etc. This isn’t fun if you don’t feel safe. Do your research. To date, we’ve visited more than 10 Caribbean islands and have never felt unsafe. But we always do our research and stay away from areas we know pose a problem. This is one of the reasons we never go to Mexico. It’s not safe to leave the resorts. Keep in mind that crime rates near any large city or the cruise ports is almost always high. Stay away from those areas and…

Be willing to go the extra mile. When I tell people that I LOVE the Bahamas, they often crinkle their nose and say: “Ooooh, I’ve heard it’s terrible there. Crime is bad. Beaches are kinda gross and full of people.” And they’d be right if I was talking about Nassau or Freeport. But we go the extra mile. Our plane touches down in Nassau, and we immediately board another that takes us to one of the outlying islands. Yes, the travel day is longer and it’s more expensive. But you’re not going to see the spectacular places of the world if you stay near the tourist areas or large cities.

Get away from cities and mass tourist destinations and you are likely to find unspoiled empty beaches!

Be willing to give up some amenities. There’s a (slight) trade off for getting off the beaten path to see beautiful and pristine places: fewer amenities. When you get away from the big cities and mass tourist areas, there’s simply less of everything. When we travelled to Dominica, the “grocery store” was a tiny gas station. We were able to buy very basic items like bread, eggs, and coffee. Everything else we had to source from locals: fish from the docks, fruits and vegetables from little roadside stands, etc. There were no fancy restaurants. The WiFi was a joke. Our rental house didn’t have air conditioning. But I’d go back in a heartbeat because Dominica was unique and one of the best vacations I’ve ever experienced.

Do you have any idea what this is? We didn’t either. But we ate it and it was delicious. Photo taken in an unnamed restaurant inside someone’s house on Dominica.

Keep your sense of humor and adventure. The ferry you were supposed to catch at 2:00 PM may show up two hours late. The local “restaurant” may be inside someone’s house. The “road map” you got from the car rental agency may be wrong. Service – at gas stations, stores, and restaurants – may be painfully slow. A cow may block the bumpy dirt road you need to drive down to access a hidden beach. Your “rental car” may be someone’s welded-together hunk of metal with an engine. The beach “parking lot” may be nothing more than an unmarked dirt pull off…and may be more than a mile from the beach. Local grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations may not be open when they say they will. The breeze is often considered “air conditioning”. You may have no idea what kind of meat you’re eating. Slow down, be friendly with the locals, and roll with it!

Rent a f@cking car. Please. And preferably one with 4-wheel drive. Do not plan to taxi everywhere. Many of the outlying islands and areas that we visit don’t even have taxi or bus services! And if they did, we’d end up spending just as much money on taxi fares to see everything we want to see! We get out and about every day of our vacation – visiting new beaches, finding hiking trails, and sourcing local grub hubs. A rental car is essential and gives us the freedom to explore.

Plan the vacation of a lifetime…a little cheaper

Go during “low season”. If you’re planning a trip to the tropics, go during the summertime/hurricane season. Accommodations can be as much as half the high-season price, and flights will probably be significantly cheaper too. Buying the trip insurance is worth the investment if you plan to go during hurricane season.

Eat in. Rent a house, apartment, or condo with a full kitchen and cook instead of eating out for every meal. We love to sample the local fare on vacation, but we compromise: breakfast, lunch, and snacks are usually cooked in-house, or packed picnic-style from items we purchase at the local grocery store, roadside stand, or gas station. We tend to splurge a bit and eat out for dinner if restaurants are open/available. If you want to go really cheap, cook all meals in-house. You still need to budget, as grocery items are expensive in remote/outlying areas, but cooking will save you a lot of money. If you have a good sense of adventure, it’s also fun to source ingredients for meals in these remote locations! It’s a great way to get to know the area, the people, and the local culture.

Go for cheaper accommodations. I admit that I’m spoiled and picky. I want separate rooms and beds for everyone. I insist on having a great view out the back door. And I often won’t settle for less than beach front property. I can also afford it. But most locations have much cheaper rentals available. You can often find apartments, smaller houses, or even campgrounds for less than $100 per night. When in Europe, you may have access to hostels. You may have to do without a view, your kids (or husband) may need to sleep on a cot, and you may be sharing a bathroom with your neighbors…but keep in mind that your rental is only a place to rest your bones after an amazing day of exploring a once-in-a-lifetime location!

Can you say SPOILED? I’m picky about our rental houses. I like a view, a pool, a nice kitchen, and separate rooms for everyone. The hubs and dad chillaxing in our rental house pool on Eleuthera Island, Bahamas.

Split the cost. I’ll be honest: we’ve never had much luck finding other couples to match schedules and actually commit with cash, so we often travel alone, and very occasionally with our parents. However, it can significantly reduce the cost if you rent a house with several rooms and find others who are willing to split the cost. You can also share and split the cost of a rental car and/or any other gear (i.e. paddleboards, fishing gear, kayaks, bikes, fishing charters, etc).

Pack a cooler and ship it ahead or pay the cost of extra luggage and bring it on the plane. We’ve never done this, but we see a lot of people do it when travelling to out-islands. The fact of the matter is, food is often expensive in these locations because of shipping costs. And sometimes it’s hard to find a grocery store! Try to find out ahead of time how easy it will be to access food near your rental house. In the least, it can be helpful to pack a few items that are indispensable…like a vacuum-sealed package of coffee and filters. Nothing is worse than reaching your destination at 7 PM and trying to find a grocery store in the dark so that you can have coffee the next morning!

Budgeting for the ultimate beach vacation

The biggest expenses on any vacation will be flights, accommodations, and food. Here is a rough breakdown of what we spend:

Rental house: $2000
Flights (for three people): $2000
Food: $1400
Rental car: $600
Taxes, gratuity, and other fees: $500

Total: $6500

Need more tips or help planning the ultimate beach vacation?

I’m not a travel agent. But I’d be happy to let any of my friends and followers pick my brain. I LOVE talking about beach vacations! In fact, I’ve been considering offering retreats to special locations so that you can experience this kind of vacation…and also get an education in nutrition, mindful eating, and meditation.

Are you interested in a vacation like this? Comment below or contact me! If I get enough interest, I’ll put together a package proposal!

Blog Author: Kelly Bailey, IIN certified holistic nutrition coach, and NPTI certified personal trainer

Learn more about the author here.