This Hidden Luxury Caribbean Resort Has a Private Beach and Incredible Snorkeling

The first thing you fall in love with here is what isn’t here. No crowds, no loud music. You can hear the palm trees actually shake. You can take a nap on the beach. You can find the Caribbean you’re really after. 

Bonaire’s Harbour Village Beach Club makes you feel like the beach is really yours, if only for a few days. It’s one of the few resorts with “club” in their name that actually feel like a club. 

That’s what strikes you the moment you walk through the gate: this is far more like a private club than a resort, where you enjoy the privileges of membership the moment you check in: the best beach anywhere in Bonaire, lovely, full-kitchen-stocked suites, warm, laid-back service. 

You’ll only find 43 rooms here, with a mix of larger suites and Then there’s La Balandra, the restaurant right on the water built to look like a boat, where lunches are breezy and delicious and dinners are magical. We really like the Marina Front options, which are set on the edge of the marina, where you can enjoy the bobbing of the boats and lovely breezes from the patio in front of your room. 

But the biggest story just might be the snorkeling here, which is as good as anywhere on the island: you literally just walk into the water and find the reef, and all of the colorful marine life for which this Dutch Caribbean island is so famous (Bonaire, after all, developed as a tourism destination exclusively because of its world-class diving). 

This resort is a great portal to the things we love about Bonaire, an island that’s unquestionably getting more popular but is also delightfully under the radar. It’s a place that is quirky, colorful and one that never takes itself too seriously. It’s place where you pull up your car to the shore, bring your snorkel gear and jump in. It’s a place for the unexpected moments, for unplanned wonders. 

Everything here is relaxed. Have you heard of slow food? This is slow travel, travel where every moment is savored, where your concept of time shifts. Where the moments stretch out, where you can measure time with the sway of your hammock.

It’s a different version of luxury resort. It’s not a Ritz-Carlton or a Mandarin. What we love most about this place is that it is still very much a secret, a hidden-away luxury resort, one that’s always been for travelers in the know.

It’s a place that feels like home, where the service is never overbearing, but just enough to deliver what you need. Because whether it’s for a few days or a few weeks, you’re not staying here. You’re living here. 

The Harbour Village Beach Club is your own private Caribbean beach club. 

What about prices? Rooms start at $495 per night right now. 

You can find good flight options to Bonaire here at Google Flights (the best option is American Airlines out of Miami).