I’ve always wanted to spend time on an unspoilt tropical island. Not a desert island, you understand, and not one that is deserted either! The picture I have in my mind is white beaches, sparkling clear azure sea, palm trees, and not too many people.
So for the past few years I have been searching for a tropical island where there are long, awe-inspiring, beautiful, secluded beaches, enough people to connect with, reasonable accommodation that is comfortable and cheap, and a lack of noisy, opinionated tourists. Ideally there will be some kind of night life and somewhere to get a good seafood meal. There will also be the opportunity to go swimming and snorkeling and to see some amazing marine life firsthand.
The problem is that when most beautiful places are “discovered” tourists soon flock there in their droves and within a few short years the beautiful beaches are packed with people, and the cost of staying anywhere near escalates so that people like me simply can’t afford to be there.
I am not looking for a destination that features large private estates which offer privacy because so few people can afford to stay there. You could say I want the best of both worlds.
Where to Find Tropical Islands
Why is it that travel companies specializing in tropical island holidays advertise places like the Seychelles, which while beautiful, is a lot closer to the equator than the tropics?
I came across one so-called specialist “tropical island accommodation” company offering Indian Ocean Island holidays that features Lake Malawi as a destination. Sure there are islands on Lake Malawi, but this small country is on the Africa mainland, and not even at the coast! It’s totally landlocked. Even though it is closer to the Tropic of Capricorn than to the equator, and there are island camps that offer rustic hideaways in heavenly surroundings, it doesn’t begin to qualify as a tropical island in my books.
Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean off the south eastern coast of Africa, IS a tropical island, with Fort Dauphin just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. It’s a fascinating country, with incredible and unique wildlife, beautiful beaches and enticing coral reefs. But it is also the world’s fourth largest island, so it doesn’t fit the bill as my ultimate getaway.
Staying south of the equator, but hopping continents, I’m looking at the islands off Australia, and I think I’ve come up trumps. A little to the north of the tropics, there’s a group of 74 palm-fringed islands called the Whitsundays, within the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea. You’ll certainly get to see marine life, palm trees, azure seas and long white beaches. The largest uninhabited island has the same name as the group of islands – Whitsunday – and you’ll find some of Australia’s best beaches here. It’s not totally secluded, which I’m happy about, but it is pristine. While some of the tiny tropical islands here are very expensive, Hamilton Island, which is the largest inhabited island is probably the cheapest to stay on.
The Bahamas are also in the tropics, right on the Tropic of Cancer to the east of the Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Florida. There are more than 700 islands here and even more coral reefs than Australia’s Great Barrier Reef boasts. The islands cover an area that is larger than the UK and about double the size of Spain. Many of them are totally uninhabited and incorporated in a dozen national parks that are funded by the local government. Two of the Bahamas best kept secrets are:
- Acklins, which is remote and rather desolate.
- Crooked Island, dubbed a “fragrant island” because of the herbs and flowers that grow there.
While both lack the palm trees I had pictured, I believe I am getting closer to my ultimate tropical island.
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