Travel Bahamas

Search out the backwater quays or sun

bake with the terrifically tanned.

The Bahamas has successfully promoted itself as a destination for US jetsetters, and a lot of it is Americanised. Yet there are still opportunities among its 700 islands and 2500 cays to disappear into a mangrove forest, explore a coral reef and escape the high-rise hotels and package-tour madness.
The 18th-century Privateers' Republic has become a modern banker's paradise, at least on New Providence and Grand Bahama. On the other islands - once known as the Out Islands but now euphemistically called the Family Islands - the atmosphere is more truly West Indian.

Travellers with a taste for the wild side will

relish Botswana.

Beyond the narrow eastern corridor where the majority of the population is concentrated, Botswana is a largely roadless wilderness of savannas, deserts, wetlands and salt pans. Skinflints and softies beware: this remains a destination for the intrepid, well-heeled traveller.