JAMAICA - BEACHES, REGGAE, RUM AND BEYOND

Jamaica's beaches and all-inclusive resorts have become legendary. Montego Bay is Jamaica's second largest city and about a third of the hotel space is here. You'll find great shopping, working plantations to visit, mountains, golf, horseback riding, river rafting and more.

Montego Bay – MoBay, as the locals call it – is one of the world’s loveliest bays. The city of Montego Bay is also the secret capital of this paradiascal island and a kaleidoscope of Jamaican joie de vivre. Here, anyone can find a perfect holiday: Lonely or lively (take your pick) beaches, parasailing on the coast or snorkeling on an unspoilt coral reef, coffee plantations in Blue Mountains, luxurious resorts and lively street markets. History buffs will find traces of ancient pirates and British colonial traditions.

But if you want to experience the island like the legendary Errol Flynn, try bamboo rafting. In the 1940s, the swashbuckling actor invented raft racing on the Rio Grande. The typical 30-foot narrow rafts of Jamaica were once used to transport bananas from the plantations to the sea. Today they’re available for exploring just about any river, including the Martha Brae, some 90 minutes by car from MoBay. Sitting side-by-side on a small bench, two riders can explore the island in all its exotic beauty. If you like, you can pull up for picnic along the bank, swing into the river on a vine like Tarzan, or simply enjoy the wildly romantic scenery. With a long bamboo pole, the staker navigates the raft past palms, ferns, tulip-trees and cliffs, explaining the bird life and the flora along the way. He is also full of tales about the river and the people who live along it, and some of it is, actually, even true!!