The Barbados Luxury Holiday Experience

Considered as the perfect destination for a luxury holiday, Barbados is a green island with tall palms and banana trees, and famous sandy beaches. As the easternmost of the Caribbean isles, it enjoys an untouched feel, being less commercialized than some of its neighbours.

With a unique blend of Caribbean and British cultures, you'll find colourful houses, historical monuments as well as luxury hotels in Barbados, all of which complement the tropical landscape and the friendly welcoming atmosphere.

Barbados has boutique hotels dotted across the island, which focus on making your luxury Barbados holiday experience intimate and personal. These operate on a smaller scale with extra attention to the decor and furnishings that give every room a special, homely and luxurious feel. The elegant Cobblers Cove is one example. Its luxury suites and cottages deliver the utmost luxury. The hotel has suites with private pools set on the roof and private balconies to let you settle and relax in your own space. You will be encouraged to enjoy the water sports laid on such as water skiing, windsurfing, sailing and snorkelling, all of which take advantage of the stunning blue sea that surrounds the island.

With its warm Caribbean waters, Barbados offers world class diving and snorkelling where you can encounter colourful and strange tropical fish. Even if you don't SCUBA dive, you can snorkel directly from the beaches, where there are fish within reach. The beaches for snorkelling are often emptier than many other Caribbean islands so as you relax on your luxury holiday in Barbados, you won't have to share the view with throngs of other holiday makers.

This principle is reflected in the luxury hotels Barbados offers, many of which are smaller upscale properties with an emphasis on hospitality rather than holding a large number of residents.

This is true of Little Arches, one of Barbados' boutique hotels, where the focus is on quality not quantity, with just ten suites in the hotel. It boasts a top-ranking restaurant and will give your luxury holiday in Barbados a sense of pleasant seclusion that you might miss on the average beach holiday.

Barbados is not all about the beach though; there are also some cultural sites to see on your luxury holiday. Barbados is an island with deep historical ties to Britain and the former Empire. In the capital, Bridgetown, you will see the colonial influence borne out in the streets, squares and the plazas; there's even a statue of Lord Horatio Nelson in the National Heroes Square. You'll see monuments that mark the emancipation of the slaves that worked here on the sugar plantations, visit the sugar mills, and of course sample the rum that the Barbados sugar is still used for.

The colonial legacy has the benefit that the Barbadians will all have a firm grasp of English, making communication easy for travellers. And the colonial flavour still shows in some of Barbados's luxury hotels, too. The Coral Reef Club is a family owned hotel in a building of British West Indian style that provides fine dining, and a delightful setting for a luxury Barbados holiday. The 'Plantation Suites' have separate bedrooms and living areas, and include their own private pools for a relaxing luxury experience that will let you enjoy the serenity and beauty of this island.