Celebrating the release of his latest CD, Far Side of the World, Jimmy Buffett takes us on his ultimate island-hopping tour of the tropical paradise.
I've always looked at life as a voyage … with a thousand ports of call behind me and, I hope, a thousand more to see," writes singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett in his best-selling autobiography, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. Few performers epitomize their geography better than Jimmy Buffett does the Caribbean. Born in Mississippi, he did a stint in Nashville, but didn't find his voice - or his audience - until he moved to Key West, Florida, in the early '70s. As Buffett's star rose, his sails opened and he began living his songs, captaining all manner of boats throughout the Caribbean and piloting the Albatross, a 10-passenger Grumman seaplane. Parrotheads, as Buffett's band of global groupies are called, have reason to rejoice this month: the release of Far Side of the World, his 33rd album. So doff the tie and throw away the wristwatch. It's time for an island-hopping weekend with Jimmy Buffett in the Caribbean.
FRIDAY
LODGING
"One of my favorite hotels in the whole Caribbean is in Haiti: the Oloffson in Port-au-Prince. From Lillian Hellman to Graham Greene, it has an incredible literary history. To me, it's the Caribbean of the '30s. In Nevis, you can either stay in a big, fancy resort like the Four Seasons, or you can get into Hurricane Cove, near the airport. It has verandas and palm-lined beaches. [On Harbour Island in the Bahamas] I have some friends who run the Pink Sands Hotel, which I like. [On Jamaica] I stayed over at Strawberry Hill, which is one of Chris Blackwell's Island Outpost hotels. I also stay at Goldeneye, which was Ian Fleming's house. Goldeneye is a wonderful spot. It's like being in a James Bond movie. If you want action, go to St. Barts. I owned a hotel there, which was more of an all-night bar than it was a hotel, but it burned to the ground. Now my favorite hotel there is the Eden Rock."