Bridgetown Travel Guide

Barbados, the easternmost Caribbean Island, has the advantage of being just outside of hurricane range, for the most part. Decidedly British and sophisticated, Barbados is a beautiful island, surrounded by white sandy beaches and azure water. The interior is still filled with acre upon acre of sugar cane, and the cane-growing season is an important part of the local culture.

Decidedly, it is a wonderful juxtaposition of two cultures; the natives and the tourists. While cosmopolitan travelers jet off to Barbados from the UK on the Concorde for a day at the races, the local residents can still be seen toiling over a sugar cane harvest and celebrating the yearly bounty at a festival called Crop Over.

Once a major mercantile center, rivaled only by some U.S. East Coast cities, Barbados is more important these days to the immediate Caribbean region than to the world at large. It is here that major government agencies are located for the region, and abroad. For example, the US Ambassador for the...