1 - SLEEP ON THE SAND (ALMOST)
There aren't many better ways to welcome a new day than to roll out of bed and right onto the beach. Palm Island Resort, St. Vincent and the Grenadines is one of the best places in the Caribbean to go from sack to sand in one easy move. Other recommendations include the Meridian Club, Pine Cay, Turks and Caicos, and Cape Santa Maria, Long Island, the Bahamas.
2 - CONCH IF YOU'RE HAPPY
Grab a picnic table on Provo's Blue Hills Beach and watch as Da Conch Shack staff snags your lunch out of the offshore crawl. Go all in: Order conch salad, conch fritters and cracked conch. While you're waiting for the food, ask for a rum punch and a slimy conch "pistol," a reputed aphrodisiac. Eat the worm, slam the drink, feel the love.
3 - GO ELEMENTAL
Slap on the sunscreen and a floppy hat, then find your Zen on the vast sandbars that barely break the surface off the Bahamas' Musha Cay or Little Exuma, or the Grenadines' Palm Island.
4 - PRIMORDIAL PURSUITS
Find fresh jaguar tracks in the black volcanic sand of Costa Rica's Tortuguero National Park and follow them to the nighttime nesting sites of Costa Rica's endangered green sea turtles. When your guide gives the OK, move closer to the living dinosaur and watch as it executes its ancient imperative. You can also see turtles lay eggs on Rosalie Beach, Dominica; Playa Chiriqui, Panama; Matura Beach, Trinidad; and even Cancún, Mexico.
5 - IN THE PINK
Lie on your belly along the tide line at Eleuthera's French Leave Beach. Examine the rich, ruby-tone veins running through the white coral flakes and learn the secret of the pink sands - bits of the tiny sea creatures called foraminifera, or forams. Other blushing strands include Pink Sand Beach, on Harbour Island in the Bahamas; Horseshoe Bay Beach, on Bermuda; and Crane Beach, on Barbados
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