These Caribbean Beach Bars Come With Their Own Hotels

By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor

You’re at your favorite Caribbean beach bar enjoying the blissfully mind-numbing effects of your favorite rum drink. The sun is hot, the sand is soft, and refreshingly cool waves lap at your toes. It’d be so great, you think, if I could just stay here forever.

Well, you can.

Check out these five Caribbean beach bars that serve up potent cocktails as well as a comfortable place to spend the night to recover from them. You might not be able to stay forever, but a night or two just might do the trick.

Soggy Dollar Bar, British Virgin Islands By now you know that this classic Jost Van Dyke beach bar is the where the Painkiller rum cocktail was born back in the 1970s. But did you know that if you’ve had a few to many of the potent rum-and-coconut libations you can actually stay here? Soggy’s adjacent (adults-only) Sandcastle Hotel has a clutch of beachfront and garden cottages where you can sleep off your hangover. And prepare to do it all over again tomorrow.

The Big Bamboo, British Virgin Islands The famously flat BVI of Anegada is separated from her siblings by 15 miles, so if you make it all the way here, make your visit count by staying overnight. Our recommendation: Make a beeline for Loblolly Bay, an idyllic 17-mile strip of sand where this beachfront bar and restaurant serves up heaping platters of the island’s famous lobster. Wash it down with a few rum punches and then decamp to one of The Big Bamboo’s four simple, self-contained villas on the beach for a back-to-nature overnight experience.

Saba Rock, British Virgin Islands No visit to the British Virgin Islands is complete without a stop at this 1-square-acre North Sound island, where the eponymous bar and waterfront restaurant is a happy hour institution. Have a frozen mojito as you watch the daily tarpon feeding; have a few more as the sun descends to the sea; and when you’ve had enough, have the best sleep ever in one of eight stylish rooms, all recently revamped in contemporary style.

Que Fresco!, Mexico In the boho beach town of Tulum there are plenty of places to kick back with a cold chelada. But Que Fresco!, with its flip-flop-friendly vibe and tables set up under thatch-roof palapas on the sand, is our hands-down favorite. The only thing we love more is Zamas, the hotel attached to the bar and restaurant, where the beachfront cabanas and jungle bungalows are our favorite place to rest and recuperate.

Goatie’s Bar, St Vincent and the Grenadines This open-to-all beach bar on Petit St Vincent has the same vibe as the private-island resort it’s a part of: decidedly posh but delightfully unpretentious. Pull up a stool at this laidback watering hole and you’ll likely be seated next to a very well-heeled guest. But after a few ice-cold bottles of Hairoun (the local brew), you might discover that you have lots in common – and be willing to pony up for one of the resort’s 22 plush cottages, just a few steps away.