This city has some of the most stunning sights in the Western Hemisphere, because this was where the Columbus family settled down and the Spanish crown established an empire.

Nobody ever accused Grenada of being a big island, but within its 100 sq. miles it manages to offer visitors both the bucolic scenery and quietude of the old Caribbean and the luxuries of the new.

Most people know that Haiti was an unstable country in the last days of the Duvalier regime and for a decade or so after it fell.

MoBay and its environs have plenty to offer, from duty-free shopping at City Centre to hand-made items at the Montego Craft Market, and from Rose Hall Great House, a historic sugar plantation, to the Rastafari cultural experience at Montego River Gardens.

This city has it all: historic grandeur, hip nightlife, hot restaurants, great beach resorts, and an airport where the Customs officials don’t ask for American citizens’ passports.

Alexander Hamilton left lush St. Kitts for the American colonies in the 1760s, but if he’d been born 200 years later, he might have thought twice about leaving.

Not only one of the most beautiful islands on earth, St. Lucia is famous for the twin Piton mountains on its southwest shore, and yes, you can climb them (hint: the shorter one is actually harder to scale because it’s steeper).

Perhaps because it’s half Dutch (the south) and half French (where the spelling is “Saint-Martin”), this island has two, if not more, personalities.

Shaped like the bottom half of a clamshell, this Turks and Caicos island lies southeast of The Bahamas, with which it was united at one point, and north of Cuba.

The most built-up of the three U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Thomas used to be known mainly for its nonstop shopping in Charlotte Amalie, where thousands of cruise ship passengers descend daily.