As some of you may know, I’m from a little island in the Caribbean, Barbados. I rock my Barbados arm band where ever I go and my flag can be seen in a couple of my instagram pictures. The arm band is actually a great conversation starter or filler at networking events. Its also useful for those who confuse it with the Bahamas (its happened to me more times than I would like to admit)
The buzz right now is that next year Barbados will be celebrating it’s 50th independence. So far there are big plans for the celebrations and a lot of Bajans (its what we call ourselves) are planning to go back home for it. I’ve already told a couple people that it would be a great time to see the culture at its finest while the celebrations are going on. My latest experience telling people they should go visit my tiny island hit a snag. I was at the airport and the women working there said they would prefer to go during an off peak time and wanted to know if there would still be things to do without the big celebrations of independence. I instantly thought “how much time do you have?” cause I could go on forever.
For one there are the many beaches (come on, it’s an island). If you want a calm experience you can go to west/south coast beaches like Brown’s beach and Pebbles or if you want some waves you could go to Mullins beach, Accra, or hit the east coast and watch some surfing at the Soup Bowl. The Soup Bowl is known by the best surfers in the world and is a personal favourite of top professional surfer Kelly Slater who said it was in his top three waves in the world. Not bad huh?
This is the east coast on a flat day. During high tide the waves can get pretty big but there are little pools here and there that you can relax in.
If by some strange act you become tired of the beach and want to see other things, a really scenic place to see is Codrington College which is also close to the east coast. Here’s a little history of it.
I had seen all these amazing pictures of it but hadn’t actually been there until last Christmas and I’ll just say that pictures don’t do it justice but I shall try.
Another scenic but historic place to see is the Gun Hill Service Station and which also has the Lion sculpture.
It’s hard to see in this particular picture but there is a red ball under his raised paw which represents the world while the lion represents the British Empire. It was sculpted from a single piece of coral in 1868 by Captain Henry Wilkinson. At the time the imperial domination of the world by Great Britain was at it’s peak.
Finally there is the Morgan Lewis sugar mill. It is one of the two only restored sugar mills in the Caribbean.
I believe there is a tour between December and April where they allow you to taste the cane juice that is ground here that is demonstrated by the Barbados National Trust but I’m not completely sure of the times.
If you’re up for driving yourself around but you want to take a tour of the island, Island Safari is my favourite island tour to take. It carries you past all of the places I’ve mentioned (except Codrington College I think) in open back 4X4 jeeps.
So there you have it. A couple cool and interesting places to see on your own on my little rock. It would make an amazing vacation destination for any time of the year with the year round summer weather and can be a new adventure for you in the new year. 🙂
Carla Jones 
Leave a Reply