Most visitors to the Bahamas envision deserted white sand beaches and azure waters, and indeed, the island nation has plenty of that. But it also has Nassau, the capital and largest city, where approximately 250,000 residents (about 60% of the country) live. In addition, at any given time there might be 40-50,000 tourists in Nassau,…
I came to Nassau, capital and largest city of the Bahamas, to answer a question: is there a city here with value for visitors that goes beyond the cruise ships and resorts and what specifically caters to them? After a bit over two weeks here, the answer is a still a bit murky. Today, I’d…
Oftentimes, phrasing an article title as a question is rhetorical, and an author - me, for instance - has an answer already in mind. On this occasion, it is actually a question. Yesterday (as I write this), I spent the day with Exuma Powerboat Adventures on a day trip from Nassau to their private island…
My two weeks in the Bahamas challenged a lot of my expectations. That is good; travel is meant to take our assumptions and knock them around a bit. Sometimes, those end up being things that don’t live up to what we envisioned. And other times, the realities of an aspect of a destination blow those…
Sometimes one is so caught up with the beauty of this place that one can easily forget it is a country. Yes, the Bahamas is indeed an independent country, although some tourists might consider it just a vacation playhouse for Americans, or an extension of Britain. Both of those can be understood, at least to…
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest— ...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest— ...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! The fictional sea shanty from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island captures an actual truth: pirates drank a lot of rum. (To be fair, they probably drank a…
Modern-day Nassau, capital of the Bahamas, is a mecca of tourist shops, restaurants, and resorts. But between those, if one knows where to look, are remnants of a rather cool British colonial city. Old forts, stunning colonial architecture, and one of the coolest staircases I’ve ever seen… these are some of the glimpses into the…
It is not a great secret that the British Empire’s far-flung colonies were built on the backs of slaves. But here in the Bahamas, it is truly in the forefront. More than 90% of the country identifies as being of African descent, and let’s just say that not a lot of that is from modern…
The famous pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, has been quoted as saying, “when a pirate slept he did not dream that he had died and gone to heaven, but instead that he had returned to New Providence”. Regardless of whether this is a factual statement or not, it definitely expressed what the dominant sentiment…
Lots of people have been to the Bahamas. I’m one of them, and like a large percentage of them, I was there as part of a cruise. It was lovely. Others go for the resorts, clean beaches, blue waters. Those are also lovely. Well, I’m looking for a different Bahamian experience. I’ll be in the…