Making your New Year’s resolutions? Us, too! After all, who doesn’t want to be the best version of themselves in 2016? Whether you want to lose weight, save money or just read more, we’ve rounded up some Caribbean places where you’ll have the best odds of sticking to your year-long commitments.
By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor
LOSE WEIGHT If dropping pounds is on your to-do list in 2016, you’re probably researching diets as we speak. But you should also be thinking about ways to torch a ton of calories. Our plan: checking into Couples Swept Away all-inclusive resort in Negril, Jamaica, where we’ll busy ourselves with tennis, diving, squash, racquetball, kayaking, swimming laps, sailing and Pilates classes for one fun and fat-burning week.
SAVE MONEY Keeping to a budget is hard but it isn’t impossible – even on vacation. Watch your pennies – and the most amazing beachfront sunrises – at Nueva Vida De Ramiro, a charming and colorful eco-friendly enclave in Tulum, Mexico, where rates start at just $90 a night.
DITCH STRESS The frequently frazzled will find sweet serenity and blissful sloth on Saba, a tranquil five-square-mile Dutch-Caribbean outpost that has only 2,000 residents; a mere 159 rooms; and no large resorts, casinos, or shopping malls to distract you from your peace-seeking priority.
MAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF If you’re always promising yourself a massage at your local spa but can never quite seem to get there, book an all-inclusive vacay at The Body Holiday in St. Lucia, where you’ll receive an indulgent spa treatment every day of your stay. Heaven And Earth hand, scalp and foot massage, anyone?
STOP SMOKING Looking for motivation to quit the smoking habit? The lung-busting hike up 2,619-foot Gros Piton, the taller of St. Lucia’s iconic volcanic spires, is definitely it. (And the view from the peak will be the first of many rewards for your nicotine-ditching efforts.)