Paradise found
Anguilla is one of the Caribbean’s best-kept secrets, and all the better for it. While tourism has been slowly on the increase, there are still no cruise ships, high-rise hotels or all-inclusive resorts. Compared to its much livelier and glitzier neighbours, St Maarten and St Barts (where the party crowd tend to hang out on their gleaming yachts), Anguilla is the epitome of tranquil chic, where A-listers head not to ‘be seen’, but to be ‘not seen’.
Imagine a perfect little sliver of paradise – just 16 miles long and a maximum three miles wide (‘anguilla’ is Spanish for eel), lined with 33 pristine fine white sandy beaches, dotted with palm trees and surrounded by year-round balmy seas that are so clear and so turquoise that you won’t believe your eyes. Little wonder that many of the beaches on this island are consistently ranked among the world’s finest.
Having been completely devastated by Hurricane Irma in 2017, taking out 90 per cent of the island’s electricity poles and leaving very few buildings undamaged, Anguillan residents pulled together in an extraordinary show of resilience and community spirit to get the island and its vital tourism not just back up and running again, but even better than before.
Whilst savvy tourists
