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Some places are photographed so often or otherwise overexposed that they can disappoint when visited for the first time. But certain locations, like Paris and St. Barth’s, live up to their legend and continue to delight the first-time traveler. The small French island in the West Indies has been called the St.-Tropez of the Caribbean, but that doesn’t do it justice because it’s not an imitation of any place. St. Barth’s has a rhythm of its own that mixes l’art de vivre with a laid-back tropical ease.

The heady recipe for St. Barth’s charm was revealed to me on two mornings on a recent trip there. On one I woke up at the Eden Rock hotel and went down to the beachfront restaurant to get my morning latte. As a photographer shot two models in flowing white on the beach, a bronzed couple of a certain age arrived. Both were fantastically fit; she wore a white bikini and dark glasses, he had on bathing trunks with a bright-green-and-pink print and under one arm carried a Yorkie with barrettes in its hair. They were spending two months at Eden Rock, and their tans revealed their primary daytime activity. Meanwhile, from behind his camera with a large telephoto lens, the photographer shouted instructions at his obliging beauties; the motto on the back of his tank top summed up the moment, at least I imagined it did, for the couple, with the words: “successful living.”

The previous morning, I had followed the advice of a friend and taken a path away from the chic and into the wild. After stopping for croissants at the La Petit Colombe bakery, I headed to Saline Beach. With the road to myself, I passed marshlands, heard a rooster crow and smelled the smoke of burning brush. I left my car by the marshes and hiked a sandy path under of canopy of dune trees. An aging French surfer, still muscled but with gray streaks in his longish hair, trotted by with his board under his arm. “Salut,” he said. The locals race here to catch waves or swim naked before going to work. But for one lone walker and a couple at the far western sweep of the beach, I had the vast expanse to myself. Those two differing mornings captured the contrast that makes the island so magical. On two different beaches, only a few miles apart, you can find glamour in its most stylized form or you can exult in raw natural beauty. As one friend said, “It’s not a vacation; it’s a lifestyle that you adopt for a while.”

It’s easy to miss the quieter side of St. Barth’s, but its existence is a key to the allure for all visitors—even the bronzed and the brash who descend over the holidays. Because I’d argue that if the island didn’t have this savage, unspoiled side left, so many of the locals wouldn’t stay and be so happy. And their enthusiastic hospitality, almost giddiness, are part of what makes visiting here so great. I often get the feeling that the islanders have the smiles of those who share a secret. One friend said to me, “Yeah, it’s knowing how much cash they’re taking off you.” But I think it’s that we remind them of how lucky they are to live on St. Barth’s when we only get to visit. They should be smiling: they have a permanent address in a true paradise.