Bequia Beach Hotel

Bequia is the Grenadines as sailors have always known them—a seven-square-mile island of boatbuilders, rum shops and harbour life at Admiralty Bay—and the Bequia Beach Hotel is its most comfortable landing. Spread through gardens behind Friendship Bay on the quieter south coast, the family-owned resort has grown gracefully from a small hotel into a collection of rooms, suites and villas styled with a nostalgic glamour: plantation shutters, four-posters, vintage travel posters and a beach bar that could grace a 1960s postcard.

The beach is a genuine asset—a long, palm-backed curve with calm-to-lively swimming and none of the crowds of larger islands—and the pool, gardens and spa cottage fill the property's rhythm between meals. Bagatelle, the main restaurant, works island seafood and continental classics with live music nights, and the beachfront grill keeps lunch barefoot.

Bequia's pleasures lie in easy reach: water taxis to Port Elizabeth's waterfront bars, sails to Mustique or the Tobago Cays, turtle sanctuary visits and the island's fabled Easter Regatta. The hotel's airport transfers and long-stay villas suit travellers settling in for a week or more. It is not cutting-edge, and does not wish to be; the appeal is Caribbean hotel-keeping in the classic manner, on an island that still feels like a secret.