Anniversary Trip - please help!

[islandmaari]

So we usually come to St. John for our anniversary, but flights are crazy right now and we can't use our air miles. So we are trying to find a place that has beaches that are close to the level of awesome that is on St. John. Any suggestions? We are looking at Belize, Roatan, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic. We really just want low key, nice people and a beautiful beach we can plop down on with drinks and a lunch.
We are also both divers and pretty active and not necessarily resort people, but if it's low key enough we'd be open to it.

Anyone know another place with amazing beaches that is in the Caribbean?

[CariBert]

Look at Cayman, Little Cayman or Cayman Brac.

-Bert

[theshopper3]

Hi Islandmaari,

We just returned from our first visit to Roatan & loved every minute of it. We are avid STJ vacationiers & it was a nice change.

The people were awesome & the water was beautiful, Roatan is the home to the second largest reef next to The Great Barrier reef, & also the home to the Black Aguana. This is a huge diving area as well as snorkelling. We snorkelled every day off the beach & saw so many amazing things that we haven't seen in STJ.

We rented a beautiful condo that was a 10 minute walk from the main beach, & had the whole complex pretty well to our selves for the whole week, so peaceful & quiet, with amazing views, water fall pool & little private beach aea.

There are lots of little places to grab a bite for lunch & stare out at the beach.

If you have any quetions just ask.

Thanks The Shopper

[stjchica]

Flights to Cayman are usually pretty pricey too..
Have never been, but Abaco Islands (Bahamas) looks nice and is supposed to have great diving and be low key..
http://www.bahamas.com/out-islands/abaco-islands/diving
Not sure about the diving but I've also looked into Turks and Caicos...Hopefully some of the others will chime in as well...

[chrisn]

Hi Islandmaari,

We just returned from our first visit to Roatan & loved every minute of it. We are avid STJ vacationiers & it was a nice change.

The people were awesome & the water was beautiful, Roatan is the home to the second largest reef next to The Great Barrier reef, & also the home to the Black Aguana. This is a huge diving area as well as snorkelling. We snorkelled every day off the beach & saw so many amazing things that we haven't seen in STJ.

We rented a beautiful condo that was a 10 minute walk from the main beach, & had the whole complex pretty well to our selves for the whole week, so peaceful & quiet, with amazing views, water fall pool & little private beach aea.

There are lots of little places to grab a bite for lunch & stare out at the beach.

If you have any quetions just ask.

Thanks The Shopper

Sounds amazing. How did the beaches compare?

[Gigi]

The flight is a killer but have you looked at Kauai? The north shore is awesome!

[dbeahan]

Check out the island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico. It is starting to become a little more popular as a tourist spot, but is still the most low key island we have visited by far. We found the beaches there to be the equal (or in some cases better) than St. John. Not sure about the diving there, though.

[DonnaM]

We loved Belize but the water right off the beach was full of sea grass because of the reef. The snorkeling and diving is amazing in Belize and the people were awesome. You may want to check out Ambergris Cay and see if you can swim off the beach.

[traveler22]

Try Provo, Turks & Caicos Laid back, awesome beach (Grace Bay) but eating can be quite $$$.