Forget the Crowds: 5 Tiny Caribbean Islands to Escape to Now

There’s a certain moment in Caribbean travel. When the big islands start to feel crowded. When the bustling beaches feel like airports. When the escape needs an escape. That’s when you go smaller. Not just small — tiny. Because tucked between the dots on the map are some of the most magical places in the hemisphere. Places where there are no chains, no crowds, no cruise ships. Just blue water, barefoot afternoons and time that doesn’t matter.

You don’t stumble upon these islands — you seek them. And when you find them, they tend to stay with you. Here are five tiny islands you should know about — right now.

San Salvador, The Bahamas

It’s one of the most storied islands in the Caribbean — and also one of the most overlooked. But that’s what makes San Salvador such a revelation.

This is where Columbus first made landfall in the New World. Today, it’s still one of the most untouched corners of The Bahamas — raw, rugged and impossibly beautiful. The beaches are vast and empty, the diving is world-class, and the entire island pulses with a kind of stillness that’s hard to find anymore.

There’s one main resort here — the all-inclusive Club Med Columbus, perched on a spectacular stretch of coast. But the real luxury is outside: riding a bike through the quiet streets of Cockburn Town, snorkeling in Graham’s Harbour, walking for an hour without seeing another soul.

It’s not the easiest island to get to — a few scheduled flights from Nassau, one from Miami, or charter connections — but that’s the trade-off. When you make it to San Salvador, you’ve earned your solitude. And that solitude will reward you.

Terre-de-Haut, Guadeloupe

It’s a little piece of France that floats in the Caribbean, and it feels like it floated here from a dream.

Terre-de-Haut is the crown jewel of Les Saintes, a speck of volcanic rock with pastel cottages, scooting mopeds, and boulangeries that open before sunrise.

There are beaches here that feel undiscovered, even if they aren’t. Places where the only sounds are sailboat masts clinking in the breeze and an occasional splash from a diving pelican. You stay in hideaways with names like Les Petits Saints and Bois Joli, and you eat lunch by the sea — baguette in one hand, rosé in the other (or, of course, a ti’ punch).

From Miami or New York, you fly to Guadeloupe’s main island of Grande Terre (Guadeloupe is, you may not realize, a full-fledged archipelago), then board a ferry. The final stretch takes under an hour. The feeling when you arrive? That you may never leave.

Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

There are places where people sip Painkillers. And then there’s Jost, where Painkillers were born.

This little island — just over three square miles — is one of the most iconic in the Caribbean. And yet it still feels hidden. You arrive by boat. You walk to the bar barefoot. You find yourself laughing with strangers.

White Bay is the headline — pure powder sand, the electric blue of the shallows, and the Soggy Dollar Bar perched like a beach mirage. Around the bend is Great Harbour, where Foxy still sings to the crowd like he always has.

There’s a quiet side, too. Villas tucked into hillsides, waves brushing against rocky points, silent sunrises that feel like your own private religion.

You don’t just visit Jost. You become part of it. (And make sure you stay at the lovely hotel called The Hideout).

Little Cayman

It’s one road. It’s one store. It’s barely one island.

Little Cayman is what you dream about when the emails won’t stop and the airports feel like shopping malls. You land on a tiny airstrip and immediately slow down. Because there’s no way not to.

You’ll snorkel, you’ll dive, you’ll see reef sharks and eagle rays. You’ll bike to dinner under a coral-colored sky. And most nights, you’ll just sit by the water, letting the breeze finish your thoughts.

Places to stay? The laid-back legend that is Southern Cross Club. The dive haven that is Little Cayman Beach Resort. They’re small, personal and exactly what you want.

This isn’t just the best-kept secret in Cayman. It’s one of the best-kept secrets in the Caribbean.

Harbour Island, The Bahamas

It goes by Briland. But this isn’t the Bahamas you think you know.

It’s old-school Caribbean. It’s boutique hotels with wraparound verandas and perfect cocktails at dusk. It’s golf carts and art galleries and pink sand that really is pink. The hotels are sublime — Coral Sands, The Dunmore, Pink Sands — you could spend the week just moving from one to the next, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

You fly to North Eleuthera (try Tradewind’s new flights), hop in a water taxi, and a few minutes later you’re strolling down Bay Street, wondering how such a small place can hold so much charm. Because this island may be tiny, but it lives large.