Beautiful Bahamas!

“Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take ya to Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama.”

Every single time someone mentions the Bahamas, that song starts playing in my head on repeat. Cannot escape it. Are there any more iconic lyrics that tie to Caribbean islands? I’m genuinely asking here because if there are, I haven’t heard them.

All I know is when Tina announces “we’re going to the Bahamas in April,” I’m already mentally packing the suitcase and locating my Ray-Bans. Not much discussion needed. The woman could say “we’re spending seven days in a yurt in Saskatchewan” and I’d probably still grab my swim trunks out of habit, but this particular announcement required zero convincing.

April 2019 found us driving away from Freeport Airport in our rental car, headed to our condo on the beach. This was one of the first times we actually used our timeshare points, which felt like discovering we’d been sitting on winning lottery tickets without realizing it. The property sat right on the beach and included a marina, restaurant, conference room, pool, and hot tub. Family-run operation, which gave it that small-town vibe where people actually remember your name instead of treating you like room number 237.

The two-bedroom condo came with a full kitchen, living room, modern appliances that actually worked, and a large balcony offering views of the Caribbean that made me question every life decision that kept me in an office for decades. We were looking forward to seven days in yet another paradise. Retirement continues to have its perks.

Things to Do Grand Bahama: Day One Discoveries

Day one was spent doing absolutely nothing productive. Beach lounging. Neighborhood strolling. The kind of day where your biggest decision involves whether to read three chapters or take a nap first. Turned out our accommodations were right next door to the famous Xanadu Beach Resort and Hotel.

Once owned by Howard Hughes, this place was THE getaway for the jet-set rich and famous in the Caribbean. A favorite hangout of the Rat Pack, back when rat packing was apparently a thing people did. Hughes lived in the penthouse up until a couple months before his death, and the hotel was sold shortly thereafter. The place has that faded glamour thing going on. You can practically see Frank Sinatra’s ghost ordering another martini at the bar.

Enough history. One thing I genuinely appreciate about Caribbean islands we’ve visited is that you can drive from one end to the other in a day without feeling like you’ve just completed the Dakar Rally. Since we usually have plenty of time (see: retirement), we often split the island tour into several days. Allows for leisurely strolls along empty beaches and properly experiencing tourist sites without rushing like we’re trying to catch a connecting flight.

Finding the Good Stuff: Local Food Recommendations

One of the very first things we do anywhere is ask locals about THEIR favorite places to eat. Forget TripAdvisor’s top ten, I want to know where the people who actually live here choose to spend their money. This strategy has never steered us wrong. Well, almost never. There was that one incident in Puerto Morelos, but that’s another story.

First stop was Shabo’s in the West End. A little shack perched right on the beach next to a mountain of empty queen conch shells, about halfway up an entire string of similar establishments along the shore. For a few bucks, the missus and I were both sitting on the tailgate of our rental car, stuffing our faces with fresh conch fritters and conch salad. Absolute treat.

The conch salad deserves its own paragraph. Fresh conch, diced vegetables, citrus juice, and enough spice to remind you you’re alive. The fritters were crispy outside, tender inside, with that perfect ratio of breading to actual conch that separates the amateurs from the professionals. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. Washed it all down with a cold Kalik, because when in the Bahamas, you drink Kalik. That’s not an official tourism board slogan, but it probably should be.

Things to Do Grand Bahama: Markets, Caves, and Beaches

The next day packed in more activities than we’d experienced in the previous six months combined. First stop was The Port Lucaya Straw Market, one of those open-air markets where vendors have stalls running up and down in line after line with hand-crafted articles for sale. Some items were legitimately handcrafted. Others were imported and given the handcrafted treatment via strategic placement near actual handcrafted items. The eternal tourist market dance.

Definitely the place for souvenir shopping if that’s your thing. My wife picked up some items that I’m sure made perfect sense to her at the time. I practiced my “that looks great, honey” face and kept my opinions about decorative items to myself, which is basically the foundation of any successful marriage.

Next up were the caves inside Lucayan National Park and the picturesque Gold Rock Beach, where portions of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. These two sites sat right across from one another. We spent considerable time following the tour guide around the National Park, learning about the history and geology of The Bahamas. The caves are part of one of the world’s longest underwater cave systems, which sounds impressive until you realize you’re basically looking at holes in the ground with water in them. But impressive holes, I’ll give them that.

Gold Rock Beach absolutely deserves its reputation. The kind of beach that appears in destination advertising because it actually looks like destination advertising. White sand, turquoise water, and during low tide, you can spot stingrays, starfish, and conchs just hanging out like they’re on vacation too. The beach stretches out in both directions far enough that you can find your own private section if you’re willing to walk a bit.

Our day wound down with a romantic dinner at Garden of the Groves botanical gardens in Freeport. This place requires experiencing. An intricate, well-laid-out botanical garden with streams, fountains, and waterfalls placed strategically throughout. The restaurant nestles within the garden, and the food surpasses amazing. It ventures into that territory where you start mentally calculating if you can afford to eat here every night for the rest of the trip. Spoiler: we couldn’t, but we tried our best.

Things to Do Grand Bahama: The Wednesday Night Tradition

Food, food, food. Is that all I ever talk about? According to my better half, pretty much yes. Experiencing new cultural cuisines ranks high on my list of travel priorities. Neither of us fears trying something new on our plates. This approach has led to some spectacular meals and a few incidents we don’t discuss. The ratio heavily favors spectacular, fortunately.

Another bit of fame Grand Bahama holds is the Wednesday night fish fry at Smith’s Point. Right along the beach sit dozens of establishments with wood-fired grills and barrels of oil cooking up hundreds of pounds of turbot, lobster, and conch for the regular Wednesday night gathering.

The event started decades ago when locals hosted it as a way of supporting and bringing the community together. Those who had more shared with those who had less in the spirit of goodwill and fun. Today, the tradition continues for the local community but has also become a destination for tourists. It was literally the first thing people told us about when we landed. “Make sure you go to the fish fry!” they said, with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for announcing lottery wins.

Starting around 6 PM, you might want to get in one of the long lineups for food if disappointment isn’t your preferred dining experience. The live music kicks in about 9 PM and can continue all night. It’s definitely the place to be on a Wednesday night where you can have a great meal, sit back with a cold beer, listen to the local band play, and watch tourists try to dance to rhythms they’ve never encountered before. Also, make sure you have some guava duff. I’m not entirely certain what guava duff is, but everyone insisted it was essential, so I’m passing that wisdom along.

Things to Do Grand Bahama: The Pig Situation

Every trip has its highlights. They arrive in varying degrees, and sometimes there’s more than one. Although this trip provided plenty of great experiences, I would say it had one monumentally memorable highlight. For Tina, at least.

You may already be aware that when visiting The Bahamas, you have the opportunity for a unique swimming experience. This is one of those situations where my wife, who doesn’t normally conduct bulk research on destinations prior to departure, eagerly spent hour upon hour scrolling through hundreds of webpages in quivering excitement about this unique opportunity. Have you guessed it yet?

Swimming with pigs.

That’s right. For a fee that seemed reasonable to her and questionable to me, you get to wade into the warm, turquoise water of the Caribbean and watch a herd of pigs swim out to you from their own small island and mingle with us human folk.

What can I say? Even now I’m somewhat speechless. What’s it like? It’s different. Unique. Earth-shattering? No. Mind-blowing? No. The pigs swim up to you. You can pet them. They’re surprisingly good swimmers. They eat whatever food you brought. The whole experience lasts maybe 20 minutes. Then you go back to your regular non-pig-swimming life.

I’m not saying don’t do it. If you think it’s something you’d like to experience, by all means, sign up and go for it. It’s not going to hurt you or anything. It’s just different. My wife has approximately 300 photos of those pigs. I have approximately zero. This tells you everything you need to know about who enjoyed the pig swimming more.

The pigs at Freeport aren’t the famous ones from Exuma, if you’re keeping score. These are different pigs. Grand Bahama got its own pigs specifically for tourists who want to swim with pigs but don’t want to travel all the way to Exuma. It’s pig decentralization. Market forces at work.

Wrapping Up Grand Bahama

We ended up wrapping the week with our final romantic dinner back at the Garden of the Groves. We try not to visit local eateries more than once because there’s so much to experience, but we couldn’t resist the flavors here. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat and return to what works.

As a footnote, subsequent to our visit in April 2019, much of Grand Bahama was severely damaged by Hurricane Dorian that September. We understand that although Garden of the Groves was heavily hit, they’re already rebuilding. That’s the thing about Caribbean islands. They get knocked down and they get back up. Resilience seems built into the foundation.

Although prices run a bit on the high side in The Bahamas, it’s a beautiful place with beautiful people. The food everywhere is amazing, and as long as you don’t have a hurricane bearing down on you, this is definitely a destination worth visiting. We couldn’t have been happier with our surroundings and the time we spent touring the island and meeting the people of Grand Bahama.

Looking for help planning your perfect Caribbean getaway? The team at Boarding Pass Travel specializes in creating personalized island experiences that match your travel style. They can help you navigate the logistics while you focus on the important stuff, like whether to pack two or three swimsuits.

On to Aruba, Jamaica, Bermuda. Come on pretty mama.

If you’re considering other Caribbean destinations, you might enjoy reading about our first trip to Cuba or our Punta Cana vacation.