Summer in the Caribbean belongs to the small island. While the headline resorts of the big-name destinations fill up, some of the season’s most rewarding escapes are unfolding on the region’s tiniest, least-crowded islands, from Harbour Island in the Bahamas to Carriacou in the Grenadines to Isla Holbox off the coast of Mexico.
These are the barely populated, gloriously remote dots you reach by ferry or a single morning flight. The seas are warm, the beaches sit all but empty, and the pace slows to something close to a standstill.
Some are small geographically. Some are simply untouched. And some are big islands with so few people that they feel small anyway.
What they share is an increasingly rare quality: the feeling of having an entire island to yourself, even at the height of the season.
From the Bahamas to the Grenadines to the Guadeloupe Islands, these are the small Caribbean islands worth visiting this summer.
Harbour Island, The Bahamas
Harbour Island might be the most beloved small island in the Bahamas, a place that feels like equal parts Nantucket and St. Barth.
It’s home to a legendary three-mile stretch of pink-sand beach, a soft, blush-toned ribbon that has drawn the fashion set and the barefoot-luxury crowd for decades.
The little settlement of Dunmore Town is all clapboard cottages, bougainvillea and golf carts, with a dining scene that punches far above its size.
And then there’s Pink Sands, the storied resort that helped make this island a barefoot-chic icon in the first place, still one of the most romantic places to stay anywhere in the islands. You come for an afternoon and find yourself plotting a return before you’ve even left.
Guy Britton
2026-06-14 18:16:00