Terre-de-Haut, you see, gives new meaning to the word “lovely.”

Its one village is quaint, full of tourist shops, bakeries, markets, and restaurants. The buildings are mostly diminutive. There’s a distinctly rural French fishing village feel to the place, which no doubt has something to do with the island’s settlement history. Fishermen from Brittany and Normandy were among the island’s first settlers, and today fishing remains a big part of the local economy. In the late evening, fishermen gather on their porches to mend their nets.

Welcome to Terre-de-Haut.

Terre-de-Haut is not a shoestring destination, but it provides very good value. More developed Caribbean islands—we prefer not to name names—offer much less in terms of charm, physical beauty, and grub, yet charge much more for beds and meals. Terre-de-Haut, while not dirt cheap, is a wonderful mid-range option for travelers who want great cuisine and astounding physical beauty, yet balk at the Caribbean’s price index.

Here’s the rub: It’s not easy to get to Terre-de-Haut.

Getting There

From North America, there are two main routes: air travel via St. Maarten or San Juan to Guadeloupe’s Pointe-à-Pitre, followed by a very pricey plane to Terre-de-Haut or a less expensive ferry ride (€22 roundtrip.) We recommend the latter, of course, and we recommend leaving for Terre-de-Haut from Trois-Rivières, not Pointe-à-Pitre, in order to shorten the journey and limit the risk of terrible sea turbulence.

(Trois-Rivières is also a far more charming spot for an overnight than Pointe-à-Pitre. We recommend a fab little gîte called An Tikaz La, where a rustic double room runs €49 per night. You’ll fall asleep under a mosquito net to the scent of ylang-ylang. Proprietor Mi-Marie, originally from the Jura, will make you feel right at home.)

The beaches of Terre-de-Haut

What to Do

In crude shorthand: 1. Go to the beach. 2. Eat.

First, beach. The beaches on Terre-de-Haut are beautiful. There’s Pain de Sucre, a miniature version of Rio’s Sugar Loaf, a perfect arc of a beach best in the early morning and late afternoon when the day-trippers from Guadeloupe aren’t around and the water is stunningly clear.

The island’s most popular beach, Plage de Pompierre, is studded with coconut trees. It is typically full of people (and goats!) but is so expansive that neither really disturbs. It’s also blessed with a one-woman baguette machine, an entrepreneur at the beach’s entrance who assembles delicious sandwiches. If you’re lucky, she’ll have fish in vinaigrette on hand.

Which brings us to food. Terre-de-Haut is a place to eat well.

At Le Triangle, a reasonable beachfront restaurant, the three-course menu is €17. The fish is fresh and delightfully seasoned, and it comes with a dreamy plantain mash. If you’re polite, your meal will close with a digestif. Up the price chain at La Téranga, Auberge des Petits Saintes, or La Saladerie, one can eat extraordinary meals starting around €40 per person for dinner. The island’s cuisine is hybrid French/Creole, and there are lots of good fresh fish dishes on offer.

Where to Stay

We love Hôtel LôBleu, a stylish, mid-range charmer run well by Maxime Naffah and his friendly staff. Doubles with a view of the village begin at €68 in low season (late May through the end of July; October) and top out at €110 in high season (mid-December through late May).

The Upshot

We’ll repeat our earlier dictum: Terre-de-Haut is not a backpackers’ destination, but it is a good midrange Caribbean holiday destination. Hotels are reasonably priced, with most offering double rooms for €80 in high season and €60 in low season. There are also a handful of gîtes on hand with even cheaper nightly rates. Restaurants are not exactly full of bargains, but nothing is outrageous or dramatically overpriced.

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The French territories include the overseas departments of French Guiana (well to the east of the Caribbean sea on the northern coast of South America, though often grouped with the Caribbean), Guadeloupe, and Martinique, as well as the smaller “overseas collectivities” of Saint Barthélemy (or Saint Barts) and Saint Martin.

Click for an island map.

French Caribbean

Guadeloupe has three “offshore island” groups—the picture-perfect Les Saintes archipelago, with just two inhabited islands, Terre-de-Bas and Terre-de-Haut; the rural rum-producing island of Marie-Galante; and the small fishing isle of La Désirade.

The French territories are interesting for their complete integration into the French state, just as Hawaii and Alaska are integrated into the United States. Every citizen of these overseas territories is represented in Paris by an elected politician. The French territories consequently feel far more European than their Dutch and British counterparts.

Dutch Caribbean

Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles are the Dutch Caribbean territories. The latter is a federation of five islands, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten. Aruba, the former, broke apart from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. The Dutch territories are semi-autonomous parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The islands are not part of the European Union, though their citizens are all Dutch citizens, and by extension also EU citizens.

Incidentally, the Netherlands Antilles will cease to exist sometime in the next few years. The two larger islands in the current federation, Curaçao and St. Maarten, will run their own affairs, as Aruba has been doing for over two decades now, while Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius will become Dutch overseas municipalities. These three tiny islands—with a combined population of around 20,000—will be integrated by and large into the Netherlands’ legal framework. Once the switch takes place, the citizens of these three tiny islands will also vote in Dutch and EU elections.

British Caribbean

The United Kingdom’s Caribbean territories consist of Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The final of these, though not technically a part of the Caribbean at the southeastern flank of the Bahamas, is usually associated with the region. In 2002, these islands’ residents obtained British citizenship—and with it, EU citizenship.

The British territories are a real hodgepodge, and feel least tied to the mother country of the three. The variation in living standards and culture is great. It includes the massive per capita incomes of the Cayman Islands, the hardscrabble survivor spirit of Montserrat and the bucolic, backwater feel of many of the Caicos and British Virgin Islands.

Where are we?

Your Wandering Cheapo is currently holed up on one of the exquisite islands catalogued above. Which one, you wonder? Stay tuned–he’ll spill the beans and fill in the blanks on Friday.

Alex Robertson Textor is Editor-at-Large at EuroCheapo. He writes travel stories for the New York Post, New York Times, and Rough Guides, among other publications, and he also maintains Spendthrift Shoestring, a blog on budget travel and culture.

The post Wandering Cheapo: Europe in the Caribbean? appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.