Barbados Smart Splurges

Celebs and CEOs alike flock to Sandy Lane to be pampered. The golf club is unmatched, the spa hedonistic, the food fabulous, the digs opulent, the architecture stately, and the service (including personal butlers) professional yet discreet.

Fancifully shaped stalactites and stalagmites blossom around subterranean streams and a 40-foot waterfall. Electric trams whisk you around the limestone cavern’s most remarkable sections on the wildly popular one-hour tour.

Golf-mad Barbados features several top-hole courses, but the Country Club at Sandy Lane is the unquestioned queen, with the Tom Fazio-designed Country Club Course and devilish guest/member-only Green Monkey Course. Carts include GPS, which provides hazard alerts, playing tips, and refreshment orders.

Thanks to Chef Paul Owens' artistry, terrace-front tables are booked weeks, even months, in...more

This chi-chi Caribbean outpost of London’s see-and-be-seen chain seduces with theatrically...more

On Wednesdays and Fridays, the Plantation Restaurant and Garden Theater presents this West Indian cultural extravaganza. In addition to a Bajan buffet dinner with unlimited drinks, guests enjoy colorful costumes, live steel pan and reggae music, and fire-eaters.

As the name suggests, everything sold here is created on island. Browse a full range of traditional and contemporary items from maps to mugs designed by the owner, internationally renowned artist Jill Walker. There are seven locations.