Busy, built-up beaches lined with oversize, overcrowded resorts define the Caribbean that most visitors know, for better or worse. However, amid the pervasive problem of an overcommercialized, cookie-cutter Caribbean experience, an exceptional few destinations still manage to feel a world away.
One such island is Saba, known affectionately as the “Unspoiled Queen” of the Caribbean. At just five square miles in size, it’s one of the tiniest inhabited islands in the Caribbean. However, it punches far above its weight when it comes to providing a one-of-a-kind travel experience, making it the ideal antidote to the cookie-cutter Caribbean vacation.
Unspoiled Queen
Despite being just a stone’s throw from some of the Caribbean’s most popular destinations like Anguilla and Antigua, the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba is one vacation spot most travelers have never even heard of.
Considered a special municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Saba is partially so unknown due to its tiny footprint, home to 2,000 permanent residents spread across just four villages. Saba also breaks every Caribbean island stereotype you can imagine and then some, making it totally unique as a travel destination in a region known for a very particular type of sun-and-sand, fly-and-flop style of travel.
“Saba is totally different from other Caribbean destinations,” says Malinda Hassell, Director of Tourism of the Saba Tourist Bureau. There are no true beaches on Saba, save a few rocky coves and a tiny sliver of sand built up for beach barbeques. Visitors won’t find anything like an all-inclusive resort here; the island doesn’t have a single branded hotel or resort, with just a handful of charming boutique properties offering less than two hundred hotel rooms on the entire island.
“Instead, it’s a much more adventurous destination,” says Hassell, echoing Saba’s “Big Adventure, Small Island” tagline. “It’s really refreshing for travelers looking for something different.”
Enjoying Saba
What Saba is missing when it comes to classic Caribbean beaches, it makes up for with another level of adventurous travel experiences most visitors won’t associate with a Caribbean destination. The island is essentially just the top of a long-dormant volcano peeking above the waves, its jagged landscapes now coated in lush, tropical ecosystems hiding well-kept hiking trails and stunning scenic viewpoints from every turn.
One of the best things to do in Saba is to hike Mount Scenery, the volcanic peak at the center of the island and the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The hike is strenuous but doable, with a well-kept trail to the top cut into the lush rainforest and cloud forest ecosystems by James “Crocodile” Johnson. The machete-wielding septuagenarian still treks the peak almost daily, guiding visitors to the top with the utmost care at pointing colorful rainforest flowers, wild ginger, and endemic flora and fauna along the way.
The island’s world-class diving and snorkeling is another major draw, long tempting serious divers here for up to a week or more. The dramatically sloping sides of this volcanic cone of an island continue below the sea, making for an unexpectedly diverse underwater topography ripe with candy-colored reefs. Saba is home to just one dive shop, Sea Saba, but offers an impressive array of experiences, including beginner and advanced certifications and excursions everywhere, from dramatic pinnacles to swimming with sharks.
Getting Unplugged
Saba’s simplest yet sweetest draw for visitors is less tangible. Though it’s just a 15-minute flight from its closest neighbor and boasts views of numerous other Caribbean islands on a clear day, it feels uniquely set apart and supremely remote. You’ll feel your stresses float a mile away the second you step onto the island. In a place where everyone knows everyone, there is no such thing as hustle and bustle and little more to do than enjoy the moment. It’s a level of tranquility that feels foreign in our modern world.
Part of Saba’s deliciously remote, removed feel is the effort it takes to get there. The island is home to the shortest commercial runway in the world, and though it only receives flights from nearby St. Maarten on tiny aircrafts by regional airline, Winair. Visitors can also reach the island via Makana Ferry Service from nearby Anguilla, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten, offered throughout the week.
Many visitors take advantage of special fares on day trip flights to the island, but despite Saba’s tiny size, there’s much more to do here than can be packed into a single day. Stick around for at least two or three days to hike the volcano, go snorkeling or diving, and take advantage of a never-ending array of events and activities that bring islanders and intrepid visitors together in ways you wouldn’t expect.
An Instant Connection
The longer you stay in Saba, the more you’ll experience the one way in which it lives up to, and far exceeds, one of the most important stereotypes of a Caribbean destination: effusive hospitality.
“If you stay for three or four days, by the time you leave you’ll know everyone on the island,” says Hassell. “Saba’s size and the community here make it incomparably friendly, safe, and warm towards visitors.” Whether you’re drawn to Saba specifically for its lack of beaches or despite it, that’s a feeling that is hard to forget, and impossible to find in the more crowded corners of the Caribbean.
