Rising out of the western edges of the Caribbean Sea, the Cayman Islands beckon travelers of all types with their varied charms. Whether you’re looking for an action-packed escape, a lazy retreat, or a little bit of both, you’ll find it somewhere within this island trinity, in the bustling port of the “mainland,” the untouched environs of the small sister islands, or the wide and wonderful undersea expanse between.




Grand Cayman is home to a wide variety of captivating tours that appeal to travelers of all ages, making it a perfect home base for family vacations. In fact, the island’s star attraction, Stingray City, is a perfect example. This site is a daily feeding ground for stingrays, established when the island’s fishermen once frequented the spot and fed their seafood scraps to the creatures. Today, boats of tourists have replaced the fishermen, swimming, snorkeling and diving with the stingrays as guides show them how to safely pet and feed the animals and hold them up for photo opportunities. Certified divers can swim with the stingrays in deep areas of the site, but most of the action takes place on a shallow sandbar, meaning swimmers of all ages can get an upclose look at the fascinating animals, and the thrill of feeling a velvety stingray brush your leg unexpectedly is unlike any other experience. And stingrays are just the beginning. Travelers can meet more of the Grand Cayman “locals” at Boatswain’s Beach Adventure Park and Turtle Farm, which doubles as a real turtle farm. Visitors can toss food to full-grown sea turtles swimming in a large pool at the center of the facility, or stroll through pods of smaller pools where younger turtles are reared. Though Boatswain’s Beach began as a turtle farm, today the facility aims to give visitors a fuller experience of Cayman Islands life. The Cayman Street section of the park aims to be a living museum, showing travelers traditional Caymanian buildings as they listen to historical tales told by local craftsmen and fishermen. Two snorkeling lagoons recreate the undersea life typical of the waters surrounding the islands, while an aviary showcases a variety of birds including the rare Cayman parrot. And the nature trail gives visitors the chance to explore the West Bay woodlands surrounding the park, with sightings of colorful butterflies, tropical gardens and the Blue Hole cave system. And with Schooner’s Bar & Grill conveniently serving up food and drinks on site, families could spend an entire day here—just try to distract the kids from the turtle soup on the menu. Over on the other end of the island, families have the chance to spot and interact with some of the rarest creatures on the planet: Grand Cayman’s endemic blue iguanas. Through a program at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, guests spend a few hours gathering flowers and plants from a local field, then travel to the blue iguana breeding program at Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park to feed their findings to the baby lizards. They’ll also be able to see the massive, full-grown iguanas who live at the park, sporting a dazzling combination of brilliant turquoise scales and vivid red eyes. The tour concludes with a walk through the rest of the park, keeping an eye out for blue iguanas in the wild.

Though there’s plenty here to keep kids entertained, Grand Cayman can also be a romantic haven—if you know where to look. Where long, lazy days on the beach are concerned, Seven Mile Beach won’t disappoint with its powdery coral sand and bright, bright-blue waters stretching on forever. By day, couples can soak up the sun, cool off with a dip into the ocean, and wander up and down its public shores to the various restaurants and beach bars. And by night, the beach’s westernfacing location pays off with spectacular sunsets, perfect for a private beachfront dinner for two. Couples who are looking to get away from it all might want to schedule a visit to Rum Point on the island’s East End. Tour operators offer catamaran sailings to the destination, letting couples relax with rum punch in hand as they’re transported across the waves to the beach, with its quaint beach bars and oceanfront grill restaurants, and activities like snorkeling, water skiing and sailing.


You already know Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park as a great place for families to go on an iguana-spotting adventure. But there’s more to the wildlife here than lizards. Carefully cultivated and aesthetically pleasing, the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park offers visitors the chance to see a rainbow of tropical plants, with the flowers in the garden starting with pink and red shades and working through the spectrum to blue and purple. There’s also a woodland trail where visitors can see the island’s plants in a more natural setting, complete with palms, cockspurs and mahogany trees. Add to that a herbarium, a vast selection of orchids, butterfly sightings and even a few Cayman parrots on display, and you have an ideal destination for any nature lover. And that’s just on the mainland. Over on Little Cayman, a site so untouched that iguanas outnumber the human residents, travelers have plenty of open wilderness to explore. At the South Hole Sound Lagoon, visitors can snorkel to see the island’s undersea life at its purest, or simply enjoy a private dip in the waters. Or, rent a kayak and head over to Owen Island, a cay not far from Little Cayman’s shores where you’re unlikely to encounter another soul—just untouched Cayman Islands nature surrounding you on all sides.

While Little Cayman is well known for its natural environment above the water, Cayman Brac is home to some of the best diving in the area. In fact, most tourists to this small and largely undeveloped island are divers, streaming in to visit sites like the M.V. Captain Keith Tibbets, a naval frigate sunk in 1996 that’s become an artificial reef—home to dozens of species of tropical fish, including tarpon, angelfish, silversides and more. And that’s only one of many sites around the island, known for wall dives as well as shipwrecks-turned-coral reefs.