Barbados

Each coast of Barbados has its own idea of how to spend a day. The west has the good restaurants, and white sand under a sea so clear and so blue it hardly looks real, with a lot of money being flashed along it, which is not the sea's fault. The south is for fun, from the night market at Oistins to the party at St Lawrence Gap. The east is wild, and the north the least built up of all. We have been a few times, twice on big family holidays and once with friends, and the island had what each trip was after.

The Platinum Coast, the reef-sheltered west from Holetown up to Speightstown, has the calm water and the island's grandest hotels, and charges for both. Bridgetown and the south coast is livelier, with most of the bars and the mid-range hotels, and nearer the airport: 15 to 20 minutes against the west's 30 to 45. Our favourite beaches, and every meal we thought worth it, are on the west. December to April is dry, and dearest with it. Hurricane season runs from June to November and is worst from August to October; one of our trips fell in early October, right in it, though Barbados lies far enough east that a direct hit is less likely than further north and west.

Gibbes and Mullins, our two favourite beaches, are neighbours in St Peter. Mullins has calm, clear water, and Bombas for Bajan cooking; Gibbes, next door, is much quieter and has no bar at all, which is what Mullins is for. Afternoons go to Surfside in Holetown, a beach bar behind the peppermint-coloured post office, with picnic tables under the palms, turtles often in the water off it and rum punch until the afternoon runs out. Or, for a soberer one, afternoon tea at Sandy Lane, a hotel set in an ancient mahogany grove. Then dinner on the beach at Juju's, at Mount Standfast, as the blue goes dark.

The rest of the island is a drive. On Friday nights the fish fry at Oistins grills flying fish and marlin over coals, with calypso and soca until late. At Bathsheba, on the east, 26 minutes from Holetown, the Atlantic breaks over the Soup Bowl with an undertow that makes the rocks the place to watch from. Past Speightstown, St Lucy is cliffs and sea caves, and at North Point the Animal Flower Cave has pools to swim in and a bar on the clifftop above the breakers, which is as close to the open Atlantic as a drink needs to get.