Dominican Republic
The Old City, Santo Domingo
There is something uniquely atmospheric about the old city in Santo Domingo. You are walking among the oldest buildings in the New World – five centuries of history resonate in their stone walls. At their centre stands the Cathedral and on the River Ozama sits Columbus’s restored palace.

The Faro a Cólon, Santo Domingo
The Columbus Lighthouse, a massive hunk of concrete, is monstrous but strangely impressive at the same time. The oversized cross contains several museums, mainly about marine and New World history. And of course the ashes of Columbus himself, brought from the Cathedral... Well possibly, depending on whose history you believe.

Puerto Rico
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
With its traditional lanterns and ‘adequine’ cobblestones, Old San Juan is extremely picturesque. It takes its history pretty seriously, with a dozen museums, but perhaps is most celebrated as the home of the pina colada, which was founded in a bar on Calle Fortaleza. Nowadays the liveliest bars are on Calle San Sebastian.

Arecibo Observatory
The largest telescope in the world, 1300 feet across and 20 acres in size, the Arecibo Observatory sits in a huge limestone sinkhole in Puerto Rico’s central mountain range. Responsible for the discovery of pulsars and quasars, it also saw the climax of the James Bond film The World is not Enough.

Hacienda Buena Vista
Set in the hills above Ponce on the south coast, Hacienda Buena Vista is a restored coffee plantation from the nineteenth century, when Puerto Rico produced the finest coffee in the world. Original machinery, for pulping, rinsing, fermenting and husking coffee berries and beans, is driven by water power and culminates in a Jacuzzi.

Phosphorescent Lake, Vieques
A quick journey from San Juan takes you to Vieques and the bio-luminescent lake, where by night the black lagoon glows as you agitate the water full of tiny protozoa. Each paddle stroke sets off a white whorl, a splash is like a cascade and fish sew a zig-zag pattern as they race beneath you. If there was a contender for the Caribbean’s most extraordinary natural attraction, surely this would be it?
US Virgin Islands

The Devil’s Triangle, St Thomas
Mahogany Run golf course is set on the north coast of St Thomas and thus has superb views to islands offshore and into the steep hills inland. But its secret lies in the Devil’s Triangle, holes 13, 14 and 15. In Hole 14 you will be driving over the ocean.

St John National Park
St John is St Thomas’ smaller and very different sister – it is much quieter and less developed. Approximately half of the island is national park and is criss-crossed by hiking paths. There are camp grounds in which to stay, which offer lectures as well as guided hikes.

Danish heritage, St Croix
The most unlikely nation to have an island in the Caribbean (if you exclude the Knights of Malta), is surely the Danes – but the US Virgins were once Danish territory. Its heritage is most visible in Christiansted, where pretty arches line the bay, dressed in vibrant colours. You could almost imagine King Christian appear in his regalia.

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
Full moon parties, Tortola
The in-place for the full moon in Tortola was always in Apple Bay, Bomba’s Surfside Shack – but latterly Trellis Bay has attracted a crowd. Sculpted braziers stand just offshore, burning in the shallow water, while drinking and dancing take place onshore.

William Thornton, Norman Island
The British Virgin Islands may have more beach bars than any other, but there is only one Willy T, a floating bar in an old wooden ship in the Bight at Normal Island (itself the inspiration for Treasure Island). Food, fun, dancing and drinks galore (try the water-ski, or a ‘body-shot’).

St Kitts
Brimstone Hill
Imagine being so brave that your enemies – who had stormed your fortress until not a building was left standing – allowed you to surrender and march out with your regimental colours flying. The occupants of Brimstone Hill, a massive, lumbering fortress in St Kitts, were permitted this in 1782.

Petroglyphs
There are Amerindian petroglyphs all over the islands, but some excellent examples are at Old Road in St Kitts. Now painted to make them more visible, the rock carvings are like cartoons, with diamond bodies and wiggly antennae, waving at you from the volcanic rockface.

Anguilla
Anguillian Chefs
What sets Anguilla apart is not just its excellent restaurants, but its chefs. They have set out on their own, blending international technique with West Indian ingredients and traditions to create a sophisticated Caribbean cuisine. Try Tasty’s and Flavours for uniquely West Indian cuisine.

St Maarten/St Martin
St Martin
The smallest area in the world to be shared between two nations (France and Holland) has more restaurants than you can shake a fork at, but the best area is the waterfront at Grand Case, where they stand shoulder to shoulder. A leisurely lunch between flights perhaps?

Nevis
Admiral Nelson
As a young man, Admiral Nelson professed to hate the Caribbean (it was a hardship posting in those days), but he found solace in Nevis, marrying Fanny Nesbit, a widow on the island. Now you can see Nelsoniana in Fig Tree Church and the Nelson Museum: maps, models of ships, even Nelson mugs from which to drink an ale.

Antigua and Barbuda
Kid’s museum in Nelson’s Dockyard
Nelson’s Dockyard – another place hated by the admiral as a young man – has a wonderfully historic feel now that it has been restored. Youngsters demand more, though, so visit the Children’s Museum where they can learn to climb a rope and tie knots and work a pulley system to lift a heavy weight.

Frigate bird sanctuary, Barbuda
Frigate birds can often be seen soaring with arrow-like grace through the Caribbean sky, but they have to come to earth to mate and roost. In the mangroves of Barbuda the males blow out their football-sized, scarlet gullets to impress a mate, and the pairs raise their chicks before taking to the air again.

Antigua rainforest canopy tour
Canopy adventures are appearing around the Caribbean, using the best of the tall rainforest for high-level adrenalin activites. In Antigua, among the trees of Fig Tree Hill in the south (the sole area of rainforest on the island), you will fly through the branches and the fronds of the palms.

Martinique
St Pierre and Mont Pelé
St Pierre sits under Mont Pele, the immensely destructive volcano that killed 30,000 people in seconds when it blew in 1902, setting ships in the harbour alight. So it is odd to find a thriving town. Visit the museum with clocks that stopped at precisely 8am.

Musée Gauguin, Anse Turin
Before he so famously went to the Pacific, Paul Gauguin spent two years in the French Caribbean. See his letters and sketches of places on the island, and some of his paintings. Also Martinique’s madras material, and its many uses in head-dresses.

St Lucia
Marigot Bay
One of the prettiest bays in the Caribbean, an inlet so tight and well screened that a British admiral hid his fleet in there, emerging only when his French adversary had passed. Now Marigot Bay is a very romantic sailor’s stopover. Visit JJ’s on the waterfront.

Diamond Falls, SoufrieRe
Spas are a modern fashion in the Caribbean, so it’s a surprise to know they existed 200 years ago. The waters at Diamond Falls arrive hot and have healing properties – efficacious in cases of rheumatism and kindred ills – so you can take the waters in the traditional bath house.

Barbados
Polo in Barbados
It hardly seems likely that an island just 14 miles by 21 should have four polo pitches, but the sport has developed enormously over the past ten years and Barbados now hosts international competitions. It is a fun day out to watch horses and riders slogging it out at top speed.

The Mountgay Rum Distillery
Set in the north of Barbados, in St Lucy, the Mountgay Rum Distillery (not to be confused with the showroom in Bridgetown), shows the whole process of making rum, starting from sticky black molasses, through fermentation in huge wooden vats, to distillation in the copper and modern steel stills.

Barbados National Trust
Sunday walks
There is so much romantic – and often desperate – history around the Caribbean, but it takes the Bajans to document it so lovingly. Each Sunday in the early morning and afternoon there is a walk to a different area, with a local historian who explains points of history and other interest.

St Vincent
Botanic Gardens, Kingstown
The story of the mutiny on the Bounty is famous, but less well known is that six years later Captain Bligh actually made it, in the Providence, with 400 breadfruit trees for the gardens in St Vincent. You will see many other species too – cannonball trees, the velcro tree, lipstick palms and spices such as cinnamon, citronella and clove.

The Soufriere, St Vincent
The Eastern Caribbean is a line of active volcanoes, which blow once a century or so. Several can be climbed, but the Soufriere in the north of St Vincent is very special. You start in coconut plantations and pass into rainforest, then into cloudforest, with stunted trees before reaching the lip of the crater, for a magnificent view.

Trinidad
Night Mas, Port of Spain
Carnival may be famous for its outrageous, sequinned, soca-driven street parades, but try Night Mas in St James. It takes place on Carnival Sunday night into Monday, starting at around midnight. The music is all steel pan. The bands come out from the Panorama final two nights before and play their hearts out.

The Asa Wright Nature Centre
The verandah at the Asa Wright Nature Centre is one of the largest you’ll ever see, but more importantly it is the finest location for bird-watching in the Caribbean. You can expect to see 30 or 35 species before breakfast. Hummingbirds dogfighting, tanagers, oro pendulas in their stuttering flight and bell birds that say ‘Boing!’

The Pitch Lake
From one perspective, the Pitch Lake seems like a massive, slightly springy car park. From another it is the largest naturally occurring supply of pitch in the world. Made of clay, bitumen salt water and ash, it churns constantly, swallowing anything and then turning it up decades later. 

Grenada
Fish Friday, Gouyave
On Fridays the otherwise quiet town of Gouyave on the leeward coast comes alive with a street party. There’s every sort of fish and seafood on sale – from tee-ree-ree (tiny fish fry battered and fried) to lobster and kingfish fillets. Stroll and listen to story-tellers and drummers, grab an ice cream and dance in the street.

Dominica
Roseau
Dominica is so rough and remote that areas of the island still remain unmapped, but interestingly its town, Roseau, is one of the most traditional in the Caribbean. Its ‘skirt and shirt’ buildings, with a stone foundation and a wooden upper floor, are among the most attractive in the islands.

Tobago
Largest brain coral in the world
Fed by swirling currents and the nutrients washed offshore by Orinoco, the eastern end of Tobago has extraordinary underwater life, including the world’s largest brain coral. At around 25 feet across, it is massive, with thousands of tiny jigsaw-patterned polyps. In a drift dive, sometimes the current makes your mask wobble on your face.

Motmot nests in the Tobago rainforest
The Forest Reserve in eastern Tobago is the oldest protected forest in the world. It is full of curiosities. Look out for the very pretty motmot, brown and bright blue, with long ‘racquet’ tail feathers. Most extraordinary of all, are their nests: tunnels dug two metres into the bank (to protect their eggs from snakes).

Curacao
Blue Curacao Factory, Landhuis Chobolobo
There are not many blue drinks in the world, but the most distinctive is surely blue Curacao, which is made with the peel of the sour lahara orange that grows in the island. The factory, set in a traditional estate house, can be visited.

Tell us about your favourite Caribbean places!

We've shown you 36 great places we think are worth a visit, but have we missed any that you feel are worthy of inclusion on this Caribbean Roll of Honour? Where do you particularly enjoy visiting? Are there some idyllic places on your island that you enjoy spending a day at, or that your recommend people should visit in order to really get to know and appreciate your home...? Share them with us...