Harbour Island: Introduction: Why Go Now

Harbour Island is one of those places people either love or simply don’t get. For the many glamorous folk who want to drop out, the island’s small-townpace is the perfect antidote to modernity, where women who typically spend their days in Jimmy Choos go barefoot, and men who drive Jags and Aston Martins back home tool around in golf carts, and the largest crowd you’re likely to see gathered is at church on Sunday. Because even with the boldfaced names and the beautiful crowd that comes through here, it is not a scene. I have met desperate women trying to get a cell phone signal to book a flight out on their first day. “This is not at all what I expected,” said one. “I thought it would be like St. Barth’s or Sandy Lane.” It is not, and never will be.

In his intro to India Hicks’s book Island Life, Ralph Lauren wrote: “The seductive combination present in Island Life —a combination of international lives, classic British good taste (including its eccentricities), and the traditions and flavor of the Caribbean—cannot fail to inspire anyone who has the good fortune to pick it up.” He might as well have been summing up the appeal of Harbour Island itself. Make a visit while its quirkycharm remains untouched by modern ways.