Intimate Caribbean

Short answer: Yes. My travels throughout Antigua turned up more than a dozen attractive choices, including a historic plantation house that also serves as an art gallery, two hotels that were once part of a colonial British base, a small resort that focuses on wellness, and more traditional low-rise hotels. Some have air conditioning, others depend on sea breezes and mosquito netting. Some are on the beach, others run water taxis to take you there. Some have a proper British feel, others more laid-back Caribbean.

Despite their differences, some things at each small property remain the same: They offer a strong sense of place, they are memorable, and no one is ever asked to wear a colored ID bracelet. In fact, soon after arriving at each of the three I sampled, I found that every employee knew, if not my name, at least my room number.

The Island

My four-day search for small but affordable properties takes me to every corner of this 108-square-mile island in the Eastern Caribbean, south of the Virgin Islands. There are a lot of corners. Antigua (pronounced an-TEE-ga) has no tourist-central district -- a sharp contrast to such places as Grand Cayman, where large resorts line Seven Mile Beach, and shops and restaurants have been built around them. Or Cancun, where most major hotels have lined up along one road that parallels the best stretch of the coast.

Antigua does have a capital "city," St. John's, that has a cluster of restaurants and shops, but most restaurants and all hotels, resorts and tourist attractions are thinly spread throughout the island, tucked down tiny roads and among the many coves that have made this island popular with the sailing crowd. Depending on your point of view, the distances between things is the island's greatest appeal or its downfall. It means on the one hand that you'll never be running into hordes of tourists at any one place and that isolation is available, but on the other hand, negotiating the island independently is challenging.

The challenge is heightened by the nearly total lack of road signs. When trying to find my way back to a starting point, I often find myself wondering, "Are those the same goats I passed coming here, or is that a different herd?" At one point I am elated to see a dead goat along an empty stretch of road because it's a handy landmark and, unlike the live goats, it isn't going to move. Luckily, the locals are remarkably kind about giving directions at every crossroad. It's as if everyone has accepted graciously as a national service the role of being human signposts for tourists.

The island boasts that it has 365 beaches -- one for every day of the year. They range from long golden strands to little pockets of beach with construction-grade sand. The water, however, is almost uniformly spectacular. You know those photographs of the Caribbean that you always see, but then you get there, and it's not quite as good as the pictures? The water here is like the pictures.

Most of the land on this 14-mile-long, 11-mile-wide island is owned by the government, which bought it from sugar barons after the sugar cane industry collapsed. There are scrubby areas but also fantastic vistas from mountains and cliffs that overlook the coast, a rain forest and lush fruit-growing areas. Along Fig Tree Drive near the town of Liberta, for example, the road is lined with trees heavy with guavas, mangoes, oranges, coconuts and bananas. The hilly road descends to Old Road, which leads to a pineapple farm.

Christopher Columbus, when sailing by in 1493, named Antigua for a Spanish saint, but otherwise the only colonial influence is clearly British. You notice it the moment you step outside the airport and see the Cricket Hall of Fame and the posh Stanford Cricket Ground. Except for an eight-month period in 1666 when the French occupied the island, the British were preeminent here from 1632 to 1981, when they finally gave Antigua and its sister island, Barbuda, full independence.

While defending their turf, the British built 40 forts on Antigua's cliffs and in the inlets leading to protected harbors. They left a legacy of 17th- and 18th-century architecture, including 100 stone windmills, houses and the only surviving Georgian naval base in the world. That base is now popular with yachters, including those who come for the annual Stanford Antigua Sailing Week, one of the five top regattas in the world and the largest in the Caribbean. (It takes place next year from April 29 to May 5.)

Humble, Exotic Cottages

On arrival, I drive the dirt road to Cocos feeling some trepidation -- a natural byproduct of going outside brand-name territory. I'd done some homework, studying the property's Web site and looking online for guest reviews. On TripAdvisor.com, a hotel review site, several guests reported that they loved Cocos, including one couple who said they "acutely felt the lack of air conditioning in July" yet considered it the best resort they'd ever visited. Another guest said she hated it so much that she and her husband left immediately.

But the minute I step from the car and travel up the stone walkway, my spirits soar.

The beach is spectacular -- the water a dazzling light blue so clear it appears transparent in places. The cottages with wooden floors are simple, even humble, but beautiful in their own way. Each has a balcony overlooking the water and an outdoor shower. The mosquito netting around the bed hints at a potential problem, yet I find it exotic and part of an authentic experience.