The Good, the Ugly and the Awesome of Caribbean travel in the Summer: Insider Tips and Vital Information

Are you ready to uncover the secrets of summer travel to the Caribbean, especially those islands in the hurricane belt? Pack your bags, because  I'm spilling the insider tips and vital information you need to conquer the Caribbean in the off-peak season. Engage with the reality of the hurricane season that spans from June 1st to November's second week, and understand why we're not exactly playing dodgeball with hurricanes. Discover the beauty of the Caribbean's wet season and its sultry 90-degree Fahrenheit temperatures; I'll share why your suitcase should be bursting with light and airy clothing.

I hope you can join me again next week Thursday for an insider's look into Anguilla with my gal pal Shellecia from @myanguillaexperience

Chapters

• 0:02 Caribbean Travel Tips for Summer
• 4:46 Caribbean Travel in the Summer
• 18:59 Caribbean Q&A and Booking Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Paradise Perspectives, a podcast about Caribbean travel from the locals perspective. Get ready for some authentic Caribbean travel tips, recommendations and more from the people who live where you vacation, straight from Paradise. I'm your host and island friend, rizal the Traveling Island Girl. Hey, i'm so happy to be here. Can I just start by expressing my gratitude for you allowing me to whisper sweet travel information into your ear today. I mean wherever you are, whatever you are doing at this right instance. I am so happy that you are taking the time to hang out with me today.

Speaker 1: 0:42

I started this podcast because my passion to share the Caribbean with those who want to visit the islands, and I want to be your guide and help you find your way around, in an authentic way, of course. So if you are into all inclusive resorts and large tour buses and you're only interested in lying on the beach baking all day with a vehicle out in your hand nothing wrong with that, by the way This podcast may not be for you. I just thought I'll put it all out there so you know where I'm coming from, all right. So, as a Caribbean person, i was born and raised on the island of Curacao. To be specific, i want to show you my Caribbean and that of my Caribbean friends. So I want you to see it from our perspectives right, and before we continue on the topic of today, i want to let you know that I offer private island tours on the island of San Martin, where I'm currently residing, and I have been here for the past 22 years, and I also offer pre-trip concierge services so my trip can make your reservations and send you a detailed itinerary, help you plan your trip and have it all ready before you get here. And I also offer a consultation. So, in case you just want to chat with me for an hour about your upcoming trip and you want me to help you with your trip to San Martin or one of the neighboring islands, like Anguilla or Nevis, antigua, curacao, and some of the closer islands, like Ceba, stacia, nevis I think I mentioned Nevis already I can do so, but just in that hour, kind of like helping you decide what would fit you best. So, of course, as you know, everybody is different, everybody has their way of travel and I will together we will come down up with a best plot of action for your Caribbean trip, all right, so I like what a lot of people think No, i don't make money by getting invited by destinations to kind of like showcase what they have.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Or, to be honest, i've only been to. I think I've been invited to destinations about three times, not more than that, and I don't make money. Then either, you know it's just I get invited, i go, i experience it and I write about it, or I make a video about it or I tell everybody on my social media about it. I do not have a rich husband. I do wish he was rich, but, unlike what a lot of people think, no, he's not. Another thing also is that a lot of people think that I get a lot of money, or I make a lot of money through my YouTube channel or through my Instagram, and that is again no. No, because St Martin is, and I don't think a lot of you know this, but St Martin is not yet eligible for monetization. I know it's like sad little me, but so the fact that the matter is this is the way that I make an income and this is how I can keep showing up for you every week or every other week with some content that you then get to use for your trip to the Caribbean.

Speaker 1: 3:56

All right, so, now that I've said everything that I needed to say, let's just dive into the reason why you are listening to me right now in the first place, and that is to find out what you need to know about traveling to the Caribbean in the summer. Chances are you decided to listen to this episode because you are either thinking to visit the Caribbean this summer, or you may be thinking of visiting next summer, or you just like the sound of my voice. Whatever your reason, thank you for hanging out with me for the next 30 minutes or so. I think I'm probably going to be shorter than that. So What you need to know, first and foremost, about visiting the Caribbean and the summer months is that the summer months coincides with our so called hurricane season.

Speaker 1: 4:46

So in the Caribbean it's always summer, right, but we do have a. We do distinguish between two seasons. We have winter and summer. Some of us also call it high season and low season, and other people call it the busy season and the slow season. Basically, it's the winter months are when it's very popular and there's a lot of people visiting, and then in the summer months, not so many, because of different reasons. It's not only because of our hurricane season, not because of our rising temperatures, but also because a lot of people like to take the summer and kind of explore the mainland, go to the coastal towns, you know, in the US or Europe, or they want to travel to Europe from the US or vice versa during that time, and, of course, you guys get to do those that live on the mainland. You guys are so lucky because you get to do road trips, which I am not able to do unless I get on a plane and I fly to either Europe or the US.

Speaker 1: 5:43

All right, so now that we have discussed at that little part, it is also very crucial for you to know that if you are coming in the hurricane season. The hurricane season, by the way, starts on June 1st and it ends the second week in November, so it's quite a long couple of months that we get to, you know, be a little aware of what our weather situation is, and you get to see us checking our weather constantly just to kind of like be abreast of what it is that we can expect. Now, having said that, one thing that I would recommend you do is to get travel insurance, because the last thing you want is to be so happy to travel to your destination in the Caribbean and getting all excited about it and getting your travel plans interrupted by a storm or by a hurricane. So we don't want that. I don't want you to lose out or miss a ticket or, you know, have to cancel your hotel with no cancellation policy or whatever You know. So get yourself a travel insurance. That is one thing that I do recommend you do if you happen to be traveling in the summer months in the Caribbean or, like I said, which coincide with the hurricane season.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Another thing that is important for you to understand is that when I say hurricane season, it doesn't mean that there is a storm every day during the season There. You know, just to give you kind of like an example, and on Saint Martin, we have been hit a few times, of course, because we're right smack in the middle of the hurricane belt, so we've gotten hit a few times. And, of course, if you Google Saint Martin right now, which is actually a very big pet peeve of mine, the first thing that shows up is the story about Irma, the big, bad hurricane that kind of hit us in 2017. But if you really go back and you see at the other ones that have hit us. The only other one before Irma in 2017 was another really big one that had a big impact on us was in 1995, and that was Lewis.

Speaker 1: 8:01

So there, it's not like we're getting hit every year. It's not like we're getting hit badly every year, and if we. But what we do get is like the little storms that need to be watched, that we need to watch out for, and we get a little bit of weather here and there, but I'll tell you more about that later. So Traveling in the summer does not necessarily mean that you'll be dodging hurricanes left or right of center. Okay, let's just get that out there and clear, put it on a table and put it to bed, alright.

Speaker 1: 8:31

So, of course, being this summer, it's also our so-called wet season. It's also when we're getting a little bit more of wetter, so our wetter conditions change in the summer months. This is when we'll get the occasional rainfall and we also get the occasional storms. It can be a tropical depression, it can be a tropical storm, it can be like a little bit of a thunder and lightning, it can be whatever, but there is sometimes rain And, yes, our rainfall usually do not go on all day and all week. It can happen that you may get gray skies for a few days, but it's very unlikely that you're gonna get, you know, a rainy season that is gonna be rainfall every single day for like a week or longer. It has happened, but it's not something that happens often.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Another thing that you need to know when traveling to the Caribbean in the summer is that our temperatures are gonna be super high. That is when we kind of like close ourselves up in our homes and put on the AC because a lot it is hot. Like Nelly said, it's getting hot in here, alright, so you can expect like temperatures rising all the way to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which is like way over, at times, 35 degrees Celsius, like this past couple of weeks. Actually, samartin has seen 40 degrees Celsius, which is super hot, and it's just. You know, it's just, and somebody, especially for me, i am just not having a good time because I'm going through menopause, early menopause. I'm getting those hot flashes and having to be in this heat, i can tell you, oh my god, it is just suffocating. But I want you to be prepared for that. It's gonna be hot. So forget, don't forget, actually to pack light and get those really breathable and airy clothing. I'm not telling you to run around naked in our streets, mind you, but don't forget your sunscreen and those big floppy hats and your sunglasses and all those things that you need to protect yourself from the sun, because it can be harsh.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Okay, okay, we are talking about the good, the ugly and the amazing about traveling to the Caribbean in the summer, and the next thing you need to know about is, of course, sarcasm. If you have listened to this podcast from the beginning, my very, very, very first episode was on this topic And I spoke to my good friend, tatsu Barefoot it's about this and he's an expert in this And he told you, he told us, everything we need to know about sarcasm. So be aware that in the summer, we see a an increase in sarcasm seaweed, so it's on our beaches and you can see it in the water. And lately it has been quite the hot topic because of the amount of sarcasm that we've been seeing, because in the last couple of years it has been increasing And that, of course, has to do with how we are treating mother earth. But if you want to know the details about sarcasm and how you can avoid it, then and how you. It will not affect your vacation. You can definitely go to that first episode that I recorded with Tatsu Barefoot on that subject. So, all in all, i just want you to know, to be aware. It usually starts around the months of April, late April. Usually it's supposed to start around May, but this year it has been coming in since April And it has been getting a little bit more than usual, so it will not hinder your vacation. It's not like it's in all on all the beaches, on every single beach on the island. At the same time, there's always one beach that is not affected by it. So you can check out that episode, like I said, for more details.

Speaker 1: 12:38

Now, another great thing, an actual, really good thing about traveling to the islands or the Caribbean islands in the summer months is the crowds There. There tends to be less crowds in the summer months. This is because of what I just explained to you at the beginning of this podcast. You know we spoke about high season and low season, and the reason we call it low season is because the crowds are not there. This is the time that us locals love, because this is the time we can be ourselves. We're not completely consumed by making you, or making you our priority. So the whole atmosphere is a little bit more relaxing. It is also, like I said, the hurricane season, so there's a lot of you that are understandably so a little afraid of traveling to the Caribbean in those months. And then so there are less crowds And because of that, another great thing is all of those low season travel benefits.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Right, you're going to get the airlines that are going to drop their prices, and well, with that also, mind you, comes, that they will not be traveling as many times or won't be offering as many flights to the destination of your choice in the Caribbean. They might be scaling down on those just because there's not a lot of people going, but the chances are that you might be getting some really good deals on traveling to the Caribbean in the summer. And the hotels, while here they might also be offering some discounted rates, or a lot of them will have the so-called low season rates, which are very, very attractive indeed. So the resorts, the tour operators, all of those, the activities, all of them tend to lower their prices. Even car rentals will be offering some really, really good deals and promotions and that sort of thing. All right.

Speaker 1: 14:24

So, with that, there's another bad that I need to tell you about, and that is that, especially around the months of August, september, october, especially on the island of St Martin and Anguilla and a couple of others that I know. Leave us for sure Stacia not so much, but you get it, especially also in St Bart's that a lot of the resorts and a lot of the bigger hotels tend to close their doors for one or two months. So you might get a lot of those businesses that you've been looking forward to visiting, or the hotel that you've been really looking forward to staying at might not be open in between August and October. So you do want to do some research before heading down. Also, some restaurants if you have a restaurant in mind, like St Martin and Anguilla, both are really, really known for their really good cuisine. Same goes for St Bart's, by the way. If you have one of those really great restaurants that you've heard of and that you really want to, you are looking forward to dining there chances are that restaurant might be closed for the season, so you might want to reach out and make sure that the time when you are visiting is not when they are thinking of taking their vacation. So that's what tends to happen during the summer.

Speaker 1: 15:45

All right, now what is the next thing that I need to tell you about? Remember how I told you that you can expect some weather in the summer months, especially August, september, which tends to be a little bit more rainy, and what uses water as their breeding ground? Yeah, that's right, mosquitoes. So mosquitoes and insects are unfortunately something that comes with a Caribbean. It's just part of our territory. It is something that just comes with it. You know, you think Caribbean, you think mosquitoes. I'm sorry, Nothing we can do about it, but what you can do about it is just be prepared. So make sure that in the summer months, or any time really, you bring your mosquito repellent or your insect repellent That needs to be like number one on your packing list. Make sure that you pack that in, just like you shouldn't forget to pack your sunscreen, because, of course, the sun is going to be hot as fudge. All right, speaking of sunscreen, i am a firm believer that we are responsible for how this earth goes forward, and we've seen a lot of the impact that we are causing. So please, whatever you buy, make sure that it is reef safe and that it is good for our environment, all right, whether it's the mosquito repellent or your sunscreen. Okay, moving on to let me see A lot of you have asked me over time about local events and festivals that might be happening.

Speaker 1: 17:19

There is summer festivals, and a lot of the islands in the region especially tend to celebrate their carnival in the summer. Like I know that July is the month that SEBA celebrates it, and I think that's the same for Stacia and St Kids. I'm not quite sure about Stacia, so don't really take my word for it, but for sure Anguilla celebrates their summer festival in the month of August, so you can expect some really really cool events within that festival. So I think it starts like the end of July and it moves on over until like mid August or, if not, until the end of August. There's like all sorts of festivities and events going on. One of them that you do not want to miss if you are heading out to Anguilla is, of course, their Carnival Parade and the August Monday event which happens on the beach there in Sandy grounds. That is one of my favorites And I'm definitely going to be there this year. I am not thinking of missing another August Monday. That's always on the first Monday in August, which is you know, hence the name August Monday.

Speaker 1: 18:24

And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this short little podcast, or Minnesota like I like to call it, and I hope you got in some valuable information out of it. For more about the Martin and the surrounding islands, you can check my blog and you, better yet, go to my YouTube channel. I have like over 60 videos on the topic and with quite a lot of good advice, if I say so myself. So check that out. Of course, i hope you continue to listen to the podcast, which at this time will be every two weeks or every other week, but with here and there a little Minnesota like this one.

Speaker 1: 18:59

If you have any questions about the Caribbean, or about the island of the sea, martin specifically, or any other island that you want to know more about it, or you just have some random Caribbean related question, just send them to me. You can send it to hello at the traveling island girlcom. I am going to put all of that information in the show notes, of course, so you can get that in a link to my website as well, to my email, so you can just contact me easily. You can also, of course, go to booking at the traveling island girl to book yourself an hour with me or my concierge service or a private island tour Of the island. As a margin, remember that the only one that is standing between you and the Caribbean experience is you. So get out of your own way and come and visit us already. Ciao, adios, until the next time on Paradise Prospectus.