One of The Most Beautiful Places in The Bahamas Is a Pristine Island You’ve Never Heard of 

There’s pristine, and then there’s Acklins. This remote island in The Bahamas is one of the most beautiful places in the region — and one that remains far off the map of travelers, with stunning flats, beaches and world-class bonefishing.

I’m on a flats boat, gliding through shallow sandbars and breathtaking aquamarine hues. There’s no one out here. Nothing out here but the bonefish and the birds. It’s one of the most striking landscapes I’ve ever seen. And it’s a place few people have ever even heard of. 

It’s hard to believe that’s the case for a 120-square-mile island in The Bahamas, but Acklins is just that — a destination so far off the beaten path it hasn’t even become a secret yet. 

The population is less than 700 people though, as I make my way down the island, past jaw-dropping, totally-empty beaches, that number seems a bit high. 

Unsurprisingly, the fishing is a draw here; the top hotels are a pair of bonefish lodges, one the Acklins Creekside Bonefish Lodge (rooms about $160 per night) and the other the orange-painted Chester’s Bonefish Lodge by the Beach, and that speaks to what moves the few people that visit here to arrive. If you like fishing, particularly bonefishing, this is as good as it gets in the hemisphere. Because you can be sure of one thing — in Acklins, the bonefish will never see you coming. 

I’ve traveled all across the Out Islands of The Bahamas, and always stress to the uninitiated that it’s a kind of frontier, where you find levels of natural beauty you’ve never imagined, and, in many places, the kind of delicious seclusion you just can’t encounter in most travel destinations anymore. Beaches that go on for miles and miles. Magnificent shallows, little cays, mangroves.

That’s even more true in Acklins, where the biggest moments of the week tend to be the arrival of the periodic Bahamasair flight, which is welcomed with much fanfare when it lands. This is, after all, an island that didn’t have public electricity until the end of the last millennium. What it lacks in population numbers, it makes up for in a palpable sense of adventure: when you’re here, you feel like an explorer. Everywhere you go, you’re discovering, whether it’s in the shallows off the coast, past old churches or hiking through the brush. It’s pristine. Lots of people like to say that their favorite islands are uncrowded, or even untouched. Acklins isn’t just untouched. It’s unseen.  

And isn’t that what why we all love to travel? To get the psychic value of feeling like we’ve found something none of our friends has; or stumbled upon a unique destination in the world. 

In a world where everything is chronicled, every moment measured, Acklins is the sort of place that just isn’t — off the radar, off the grid, worlds from the mundane. It’s one of the most beautiful destinations in The Bahamas, and the wider region. 

Those remote places, the ones that are that much harder to get to, always seem to reward intrepidity. And Acklins does exactly that. 

So how do you actually get to Acklins? First, you have to fly to Nassau. Bahamian national flag carrier Bahamasair operates several flights a week to Acklins’ Spring Point Airport.