JAMAICA
WHAT? A tropical experience of fitness and food
WHERE? Jamaica
HOW MUCH? Double room at Half Moon from £240 per night; halfmoon.com. Double room at Couples Swept
Away from £450 per night; couplesresorts.co.uk. Double room at Jamaica Inn from £320 per night; jamaicainn.com. For more information, go to visitjamaica.com
WH0? Jodie Shepherd, WH contributor
Tell me more. Jamaica = chilled-out vibes and cocktails, right?
First things first; if you’re having a good time, the locals are having a good time – they live to put a smile on the face of every visitor and I’ve never known hospitality like it. Think the island is all about fruity beverages? It’s actually a wellness paradise. Working my way between three resorts – Half Moon in Montego Bay, Couples Swept Away in Negril and Jamaica Inn in Ocho Rios (a regular haunt of Marilyn Monroe back in the day) – I boomeranged between moving my body and moving colourful fresh food from plate to mouth. Breakfasts of exotic fruit and locally caught fish followed sunrise yoga. Spin classes were slotted in before lunchtime feasts of jerk meats, pumpkin soup and the most vibrant beet hummus you’ll ever see. I even journeyed through mountains to experience farm-to-table dinners with Stush in the Bush, whose ethos is ‘freshness is everything’.
Anything that will get my pulse racing?
I reached peak excitement when scuba-diving led to feeding a shoal of fish and getting up close and personal with starfish and sea urchins in the beautiful water off the island’s north coast. The Half Moon Resort offers a positive empowerment session at the equestrian centre, where your task is to earn the trust of a horse – a sure-fire way to boost your confidence, increase assertiveness and calm the mind. Full of self-doubt, I entered a paddock with a whinnying stallion rearing up on his hind legs, but after 30 minutes spent asserting control (swinging my arms around, whip in hand à la Indiana Jones, directing the horse around the paddock), I’d finally won him over. Of course, I celebrated with a neon-hued cocktail, but left knowing that Jamaica offers far more than lazing on the beach.