Every time you come back, you feel better.
Maybe you’ve just spent a morning snorkeling the 1,000 Steps, or a day windsurfing at Lac Bay.
But the moment you punch in the passcode and walk through the door at Bamboo Bonaire, you feel something.
It’s not easy for a tiny hotel to cultivate that.
It’s a boutique hotel that’s been around for just over a decade, hidden away in plain sight just off the western coastal road, steps from Captain Don’s and Buddy Dive.
But you’d never know it. Because it feels like its own dimension.
There are just 13 sleekly-designed rooms here, most of them cottage-style, some of them with their own private patios with magnesium plunge pools or jacuzzis.
And they’re all wonderfully, deliciously, indulgently quiet. And that’s the biggest story here: the almost impossibly vast sense of tranquility.
With the high walls and the breeze and the Bonaire sky, you almost feel like you’re somewhere in the American desert — surrounded by cacti somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona. (This is Bonaire, of course, so you do actually have cacti on the other side of the wall.)
It’s a lovely, ethereal feeling, that you’re in a unique place in space and time – and that’s precisely what Bamboo is trying to achieve.
This is an oasis and a sanctuary, whether you’re a honeymooning couple or on a weeklong aquatic adventure (Bamboo even has its own partnership with VIP Diving, meaning you get 24/7 unlimited tanks on property — just pack up and head to your favorite dive site in Bonaire’s Marine Park).
There are the little touches — my name was painted on a wooden sign above the lintel of the door, or the fact that every room has a kitchen or kitchenette and a outdoor shower.
And then there are the bigger touches: a lovely common area that feels like your own private spa, with a pool and living-room style loungers and a hot tub; a terrific boutique spa and, happily, one of the top restaurants in the Caribbean, CHEFS Bonaire.
It’s not easy to classify it — it’s a boutique hotel, but it’s got all the amenities of a far larger resort; it’s certainly a wellness hotel, but it easily transcends that category. It’s not dive hotel, but you get all of the same needs filled with far more luxury.
And then there’s that marvelous soundtrack again: shaking palm leaves and desert breezes and wooden chimes.
This isn’t like any other resorts in Bonaire, and it isn’t really like anywhere else in the Caribbean.
It’s the kind of place you’ll just keep coming back to.
For more, visit Bamboo Bonaire.