The Tiny Caribbean Island of Anegada Is Filled With Jaw-Dropping, Uncrowded Beaches, Colorful Bungalows and More Lobster Than You Can Imagine
The lobster is the first thing you notice on this Caribbean island. It’s everywhere, on every menu, on the signs and, at some establishments, right off the dock. It’s part of the identity here on the tiny Caribbean island of Anegada, where the crawling crustacean is part of the tapestry of life. This is, unquestionably, the Caribbean capital of lobster.
Then you look around and you see the white sand. White sand, sand so white it makes you squint from the sheer glimmer of it. Take your moped down the road and you’ll find some of the most breathtaking, pristine, just-about-empty beaches you’ve ever imagined, some just slivers of sandy crescent, others home to beloved little beach bars with the British Virgin Islands’ famous painkillers.
The only way to get to Anegada commercially is by ferry (usually around $55 roundtrip) from Tortola or Virgin Gorda. Otherwise it’s chartering a boat or a plane. Unsurprisingly, it’s far from any Caribbean island you know, far even from the rest of the BVI you may have experienced. It’s different. It’s wonderful.
There’s just a handful of little hotels like the Anegada Reef, or the glamping tents at the Anegada Beach Club, or the truly lovely Loblolly Beach Cottages at the very northern tip of the island — a handful of colorful bungalows perched at the edge of one of the world’s best beaches. (Rooms from $225)
You see, these kinds of toes-in-the-sand bungalows are a specialty on this Caribbean island). In fact, the tourism formula here is pretty simple: beautiful beach plus beach bar plus limitless lobster plus bungalows. It’s practically a science.
Anegada is just 15 square miles, with one town (really a village), The Settlement, and a population of less than 500 people. There’s a botanical garden if you really want to go into tourist mode. But otherwise the story here is the pace, the rhythm, the feel.
At every turn, you notice something more endearing, more charming. The beach bar they call the Big Bamboo. The legendary watering hole called Cow Wreck, home to the Wreck Punch (they don’t let you off the island unless you’ve tried one, or at least they shouldn’t). The Wonky Dog. The scene that is Potters by the Sea (the first thing you see when you get off the ferry). The Lobster Trap. The Anegada Reef hotel (rooms from $224 per night).
For as many Caribbean islands as I’ve visited, this is one that remains entrenched in my memory.
And as you look around, and you take it all in, you feel a kind of reverence for everything that’s here.
Then you notice what isn’t here. Towering resorts. Buses. Chain eateries. Noise. It’s quiet, it’s pristine, it’s perfect. It’s Anegada.
This is the small island you think about when the mercury drops, when you plot your escape from the rat race, the one from the end of the movie.
Only it’s not a fantasy. It actually exists.
To get to Anegada, you need to fly to Tortola (American Airlines now has nonstop flights from Miami to Tortola for $691 right now roundtrip). You can also fly to San Juan then head to Virgin Gorda or Tortola on Tradewind Aviation.
