St Barts

Beaches are the reason people come, and on an island this small none of them is more than a short drive from any villa. The sea stays warm all year, around 26°C in winter and close to 29°C by late summer, and the water is clear enough to see your feet well out of your depth. Each beach has its own character: Saline and Gouverneur are wide, wild and undeveloped, with no shade and sometimes real surf, while Flamands is a long, open stretch on the north coast.

For calm water, Grand Cul-de-Sac and Petit Cul-de-Sac sit behind a reef in shallow lagoons, and Shell Beach is right in Gustavia. Colombier, at the north-west tip, can only be reached on foot or by boat and is the quietest of all. St Jean, beside the airstrip, is the social beach, where small planes land over the swimmers' heads. The beaches are public and rarely crowded, though they are small coves rather than long strands.

Eating here is French first and Caribbean second. Gustavia and St Jean have proper boulangeries with croissants and baguettes flown in or baked each morning, and the supermarkets stock French cheese, charcuterie and wine, which suits the many visitors staying in villas and cooking for themselves. Lunch is often the main event, long and rosé-fuelled at tables on the sand at St Jean, Saline or Flamands, while dinner runs to polished French and Mediterranean cooking on hillside terraces and along the Gustavia harbour.

Creole dishes appear too, such as accras, grilled fish and spiced stews, but there is no street food tradition worth the name and few cheap options. The scene is good rather than deep: there are not many places, and most aim at the same polished, expensive register.

The island's history is unusual, a century under Swedish rule that gave the capital its name, but it has left a modest set of things to see. In Gustavia a handful of old stone buildings survive, among them the Swedish clock tower, the Wall House with its small local museum, and the remains of the forts above the harbour. Around the island, the stone-walled cemeteries, the church at Lorient and the fishing village of Corossol, where older women once wove straw hats, give a sense of the island before tourism. It is pleasant to look at, but an hour or two covers it, and nobody comes for the sights.

Going out here is glamorous, expensive and seasonal. From Christmas through to the spring, beach lunches at St Jean turn into long afternoon parties with music and dancing on the tables, and in the evening the action moves to the harbour bars of Gustavia, a couple of late clubs and the decks of visiting yachts. The week around New Year is famous, when the harbour fills with superyachts and the island is at its most crowded and loud. Outside that peak it is quiet, and in late summer and autumn many places close altogether. It suits a fashionable crowd looking for a scene rather than anyone after variety or underground nights.

The island is tiny and steep, a run of dry scrubby hills dropping to rocky headlands and coves, and the scenery from the hill roads is lovely. The walking is short: the path from Flamands to Colombier along the cliffs, and a few trails to viewpoints on the east side. The real outdoor life is on the water. The marine reserve around the island protects reefs where turtles are often seen while snorkelling, the lagoon at Grand Cul-de-Sac is good for kitesurfing, windsurfing and paddleboarding, and sailing and diving trips go out to the offshore rocks and islets. There are no forests or high peaks, and a few days covers it.

There is really one day trip: the ferry across to St Martin, a crossing of about an hour, where the French side's Marigot and the dining village of Grand Case and the Dutch side's Philipsburg make a busier, more commercial contrast. Anguilla, Saba and St Eustatius are close on the map, but reaching them means a private boat charter or a small plane, so most visitors never go. A stay here is spent on the island.

The island is very safe and the distances are tiny, and the sheltered lagoons at Grand Cul-de-Sac and Petit Cul-de-Sac, along with Shell Beach, give small children shallow, calm water. Many families rent a villa with a pool, which takes care of much of the day. That is most of the offer, though. There are no attractions made for children, no aquarium or park to fill a rainy afternoon, and the open beaches such as Saline can have strong waves. The tone is set by couples and adults, and older children who need activity may run out of things to do after the snorkelling and paddleboarding.

Almost everyone rents a car, usually a small one, because there is no bus service and taxis are few and need booking. The good news is that nothing is far: the whole island is a few kilometres across, and any beach is a short drive from any villa. The roads, though, are narrow, very steep and full of hairpins, with drops and sharp blind corners that unsettle some drivers, and parking in Gustavia is tight in high season. Gustavia itself is easy to walk around the harbour, and St Jean is walkable along its main strip, but beyond those two you need wheels. Arriving is part of the effort: the short airstrip only takes small planes, usually from St Martin, or there is the ferry.

For an island of a few thousand people, the shopping is surprisingly high-end. The streets around the Gustavia harbour hold a dense cluster of luxury fashion, watch and jewellery boutiques, and because the island is a duty-free territory, some visitors come partly to shop. St Jean adds small boutiques of beachwear and resort fashion, and a few shops sell local products such as straw work from Corossol, rum and scented oils. Beyond that the range is narrow: there are no markets to speak of and no department stores, and little is not aimed at a well-off vacation wardrobe.

This is one of the most expensive places in the world to take a vacation. Hotel rooms and villas in the winter season cost far above what most luxury destinations charge, restaurant meals and beach lunches are priced for the very wealthy, and even the flight in on a small plane and the obligatory rental car add up. Shopping at the supermarket and cooking in a villa softens the bill a little, and late spring is calmer, but there is no budget side to the island to choose instead.

There is little formal performance. The highlight of the calendar is a long-established music festival each January, when classical musicians, opera singers and dancers perform in the churches and open-air spaces of Gustavia. Otherwise live music means bands and DJs in the harbour bars and beach restaurants during the high season, and the steel bands and parades of the carnival before Lent. There is no theatre or concert hall with a year-round programme.

There is no bathing culture here, no hammam or thermal water, so the wellness offer rests on the spas of the luxury hotels, which are of a high standard, along with massage therapists and yoga teachers who come to villas. What the island does well is pace. There are no high-rises, no casinos and few crowds, the days revolve around a beach, a long lunch and a sunset, and in spring especially it is very quiet. The exception is the week around New Year, when the harbour fills and calm is hard to find.