Back in the days when the Caribbean was the West Indies, planning a holiday there was simple. It involved three straight choices. First: Barbados or Antigua? Next: beachside resort or plantation-house hotel? And, when you arrived: rum punch or beer?

Today, however, we are looking for a little more than just sizzling sun and sozzling beverages. Maybe we’ve had our fill of lazing on loungers, and fancy doing something a bit surprising. Perhaps we’d like to focus the trip on a personal passion, such as diving, yoga or golf; or soak up the soca at a beach barbecue with the locals; or maybe we still want the fly-and-flop formula, but away from the crowds on one of the less well known of the region’s 7,000 islands, reefs and cays.

Whatever the choice, help is at hand. We’ve called on assorted experts on the Caribbean, not to mention our own highly subjective prejudices, to identify the best destinations for 10 types of traveller, from lovebirds to culture vultures, kids to kayakers, sailors to sybarites. Here’s the result: your bespoke guide to the Caribbean for all-comers.

Unless stated, all package prices include flights from London and transfers. For details of regional flight options, contact the operator

10 Caribbean islands with direct flights

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• Jamaica's culinary feasts

Background

• Husband, we're going to St Lucia

• Our MI5 writer in Cuba

• Ship shape in the Caribbean

• Don't pity me on Petit St Vincent

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BEST FOR LOVEBIRDS

Nevis Nevis has been winning hearts since 1787, when a young sea captain named Horatio Nelson wed Fanny Nisbet, a local sugar-planter’s daughter. More than 200 years later, the island was voted among the world’s top three honeymoon destinations for seclusion.

The island is five miles across, with a four-mile stripe of footprint-free sand and one whopping great volcano. Its colonial estate survives as a plantation retreat (www.nisbetplantation.com ), its guest bungalows next to an intimate bay, with hammocks strung between the palms. Or stay at the unutterably lovely Montpelier Plantation (www.montpeliernevis.com ), right under the cone of Mount Nevis, where you can dine à deux in the resort’s candlelit windmill.

But don’t just bill and coo at your hotel. Hire horses from Nevis Equestrian Centre and canter through the surf; swoon in the sulphur springs at the Bath Hotel, just as the Nelsons did; or get giggly over cocktails at Sunshine’s beach shack.

The package: ITC Classics (01244 355527, www.itcclassics.co.uk ) has four nights, half-board, at Nisbet Plantation and three nights, B&B, at Montpelier from £1,265pp. Or try Seasons In Style (01244 202000, www.seasonsinstyle.co.uk ).

The next best: Nevis not secluded enough for you? Try Petit St Vincent, in the Grenadines (www.psvresort.com ), a private-island resort with no phones, just flagpoles to summon room service to your cottage. Carrier (0161 491 7620, www.carrier.co.uk ) can take you there; from £2,290pp for seven nights, full-board.

BEST FOR SPA HOUNDS

Turks and Caicos Cast away on a private island beside miles of white-sand beach, Parrot Cay (www.parrotcay.com), in the Turks and Caicos, is movie-star nirvana. Ben Affleck got married here, Bruce Willis has a villa, and Matt Damon is often around. And the spa...

Its Asian statues and tinkling fountains are marooned among acres of creamy space. The product range is fantastic. And don’t miss a life-changing pounding – ask for the Como Shambhala signature massage.

For maximum Parrot Cay plushness, opt for a beachfront villa with your own butler, then book a day at the spa’s Como Cottage. It’s ideal for a canoodling couple – you can take lunch on the deck between treatments.

The package: Caribbean Expressions (020 7433 2610, www.expressionsholidays.co.uk) has a dedicated spa brochure. A week, B&B, at Parrot Cay starts at £2,015pp, or £6,404pp in a beach house. Or try Elegant Resorts (01244 897999, www.elegantresorts.co.uk).

The next best: all right then, St Lucia – but dodge Jade Mountain in favour of Discovery at Marigot Bay (www.discoverystlucia.com), and team it with Le Sport (www.bodyholiday.com) if you want to spa-hop. Abercrombie & Kent (0845 070 0614, www.abercrombiekent.co.uk) has seven nights at Marigot Bay from £1,278pp.

BEST FOR GOLFERS

Barbados In October 2004, Tiger Woods landed a birdie in Barbados, marrying sweetheart Elin Nordegren at the Sandy Lane resort (www.sandylane.com ).

No golfer would blame him for mixing pleasure with business. Sandy Lane’s Country Club course is the best in the Caribbean, and is now complemented by the startling Green Monkey layout, with tees that teeter on coral-stone clifftops and door-die approaches across cavernous lakes.

The courses also feature GPS-enabled golf buggies that beam down satellite pictures of the hazards ahead. Your caddie punches your cocktail orders into the dashboard console, while green vervet monkeys practise their swings beside the fairway.

There are another 54 holes of great golf on Barbados, including Royal Westmoreland (www.royal-westmoreland.com ), where Ian Woosnam has a place. But the really flash option is to team Sandy Lane with a half-hour flit to play the new Raffles Resort course on Canouan Island, in the Grenadines.

The package: Supertravel Golf (020 7295 1671, www.supertravel.co.uk ) has seven nights at Sandy Lane, with four rounds on the Country Club course, from £1,659pp. A similar week at Royal Westmoreland costs £1,095pp; adding a week on Canouan costs £1,195pp. Or try Lorrin Golf (0141 357 3438, www.lorringolf.com ).

The next best: the Half Moon resort (www.halfmoongolf.com ), on Jamaica, right beside Montego Bay. Go with the Azure Collection (01244 322770, www.azurecollection.com ), which has seven nights, room-only, from £1,100pp.

BEST FOR DIVERS

Grenada If you’d like every hour of daylight to be rubbery, you need the Leewards – especially Bonaire, an island deeply devoted to diving. All the best action is close to shore here, so you simply chuck your scuba gear in a hire car and tootle around the coast road. Signs point the way to the beach-dive entry points.

Go in September or October for the spectacular coral spawning, and don’t miss a plunge under Town Pier, one of the top critter dives in the Caribbean – you’ll see seahorses, frogfish, even turtles.

For a more amphibian holiday, mixing subaqua action with sights and sun worship, opt for Grenada, the classic Caribbean all-rounder. The “Spice Island” has tasty reef dives at assorted depths, starring nurse sharks, stingrays and really gorgeous sponges. But the main draw is the shipwrecks, best in the islands. Don’t miss the sunken cruise liner Bianca C, the “Titanic of the Caribbean”, which promises the bizarre experience of a wallow in a swimming pool 130ft underwater. Every bit as enthralling is the world’s first underwater sculpture park (www.underwatersculpture.com ), off Moliniere Bay.

The Padi-registered Aquanauts dive centre (www.aquanautsgrenada.com ), at True Blue Bay Resort, offers trips, kit and courses.

The package: Dive Worldwide (www.diveworldwide.com ) offers a week on Bonaire, including six days’ shore diving, from £1,006, B&B. Just Grenada (01373 814214, www.justgrenada.co.uk ) has a week, B&B, at True Blue Bay from £940pp, including 10 guided dives. Or try Regaldive (01353 659999, www.regal-diving.co.uk ).

Next best: the Cayman Islands. The Cobalt Coast Dive Resort (www.cobaltcoast.com ), on Grand Cayman, has shore diving within a few steps of your suite. With Barefoot Traveller (020 8741 4319, www.barefoot-traveller.com ), a week costs £1,295pp.

BEST FOR BEACH BUMS

Anguilla Anguilla’s 33 shining white strands spool out along a 16-mile wafer of land, offering paradisal hush and water so limpid, you can see your toenails when you’re up to your neck.

Head to Shoal Bay – strewn with a glitter of white shell fragments that make the whole beach sparkle like mother of pearl – and you have choices. Shoal Bay East has Ku (www.ku-anguilla.com ), a slick new beach hotel at surprisingly affordable rates (for Anguilla), as well as Uncle Ernie’s barbecue shack, serving the best ribs this side of Memphis.

For absolute solitude, keep walking until you reach Shoal Bay West. For long, romantic strolls, you need Rendezvous Bay; for snorkelling, Little Bay; for sundowners, Scilly Cay; for bodysurfing, Savannah Bay. For wetbiking and an allnight boozathon? Try Jamaica.

The package: Harlequin (0845 277 3397, www.harlequinholidays.com ) has a week, room-only, in an ocean-view suite at Ku from £1,168pp. Or try Wimco (0870 850 1144, www.wimco.com ).

The next best: the Grenadines, especially the Tobago Cays (www.tobagocays.com ), five deserted islets washed by pellucid seas. Tropical Sky (0870 907 9605, www.tropicalsky.co.uk ) offers packages based at boutique Bigsand, on nearby Union Island; one week, room-only, starts at £849pp.

BEST FOR SAILORS

British Virgin Islands Sailors have been cruising the BVIs in search of personal enrichment for centuries – but in the old days, they sported a wooden leg and had a parrot on their shoulder. Today, the typical charter boat is a Bermudan sloop, a direct descendant of the rigs of the old-time privateers, though the Hispaniola probably didn’t have a swimming platform built into her stern.

What lures yachties here? The benign conditions: tender trade winds, deep-water harbours for easy anchorage and sand-fringed islands scattered like doubloons, so close that you can navigate from one to the next by sight.

A typical itinerary might take in swimming with dolphins at Prospect Reef, bathing in the sunlit grottoes of Virgin Gorda and snorkelling on the Rhone, probably the most romantic shipwreck in the Caribbean. By night, the BVIs are one long floating party, as you bar-hop between Foxy’s at Great Harbour, the Willie T at the Bight and the Sunset Bar at Marina Cay.

The package: a six-berth bareboat charter for a week in May starts at £867pp with The Moorings (01227 776677, www.moorings.co.uk ). A crewed yacht, with captain, chef and all meals, starts at £1,915pp. Or try Caribbean Expressions (020 7433 2610, www. expressionsholidays.co.uk ).

The next best: for more challenging seas to conquer, follow Jack Sparrow to St Vincent and the Grenadines; Sunsail (www.sunsail.co.uk ) will organise your charter there; seven days, bareboat, on a six-berth yacht, start at £809pp.

BEST FOR TOURERS

Cuba The great thing about Cuba is that it really lives up to its postcard. In Havana, crumbling Spanish palaces in pastel colours exfoliate gently beside the Capitol Building, sensuous salsa music slinks out of every bar, and 1950s Cadillacs cruise around town, horns honking at cigar-toting matrons in melon-print turbans.

The city is a fabulously schizoid mix of faded 1950s glitz and revolutionary bombast – don’t miss the Museo de la Revolucion, where the exhibits include “the genital tweezers used by Batista’s thugs”. Your cultural tour should also take in the Buena Vista Social Club, the Cohiba cigar factory and a mojito-fuelled bar crawl in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway.

That’s just the capital. Cuba demands wider exploration – especially Trinidad, a cobbled cowboy town that must be the cutest colonial settlement in the Caribbean, and the Turquino National Park, the original guerrilla stronghold of Castro’s revolution.

The package: Cox & Kings (020 7873 5000, www. coxandkings.co.uk) has a private 10-night Spirit of Cuba tour, taking in Havana, Trinidad and beach time at the Cuban Keys, from £2,968pp, including most meals. Alternatively, Voyager Cuba (01580 766222, www.voyagercuba.co.uk) can tailor-make a fly-drive, while Journey Latin America (020 8747 8315, www. journeylatinamerica.co.uk) offers group tours.

The next best: if you fancy a palm-tickled beach holiday with a twist of excitingly endemic Creole music and French-flavoured food, then check out Guadeloupe (www.lesilesdeguadeloupe.com), where Onyx Travel (0118 947 2830, www.onyxtravel.co.uk) has seven nights, room-only, from £685pp.

BEST FOR PARTY ANIMALS

St Lucia A skewered conch kebab, a slug of home-brewed Bois Bandé rum and the insistent groove of soca music – the Friday night “jump-up” that explodes onto the streets of Gros Islet, St Lucia, is a definite contender for number-one knees-up in the Indies.

Islanders, expats, resort escapees and yachties all come together. The streets are closed to traffic from 9pm, and the rum flows until well past midnight. It’s wild, all right, but it also feels thoroughly smiley and safe – you’ll even want to bring the kids. Just don’t try to compete with the local beer-bottle-head-balancers.

St Lucia is the Caribbean’s rising star, with three snazzy new hotels in the past 18 months: Discovery at Marigot Bay, Jade Mountain and Cotton Bay Village. But what gives it appeal is the relaxed coming-together of island culture and tourism, especially after nightfall.

Start with sundowners on Marigot Bay, perhaps hopping on the little ferry to Doolittle’s, beached on its own thin ribbon of sand. Then it’s on to Rodney Bay for clubbing. Indies and Foly’s are the hot places to dance, with salsa and zouk breaking up the R&B. You’ll probably wind up at the Late Lime, on Reduit Beach, packed with locals every night but Tuesday. Chat one up and you might bag yourself an invite to the Friday-night fish-fry on the beach at Anse la Raye.

If you’ve an eye for the big event, St Lucia is also festival island, with world-class jazz in May (www.stluciajazz.org), a costumed flower fête in August (www.stlucia.org), a food and rum fest in November and a summer carnival that seems to go on for months (www.luciancarnival.com).

The package: Caribtours (020 7751 0660, www. caribtours.co.uk) has a week at Discovery at Marigot Bay from £1,036pp, B&B. Or try Virgin Holidays (0871 222 2825, www.virginholidays.co.uk).

The next best: for grown-up partying, reggae festivals and rum, it’s got to be Jamaica. There’s an events guide at www.visitjamaica.com.

Hayes & Jarvis (0871 200 4422, www.hayesandjarvis.co.uk) has a week from £1,045, all in.

BEST FOR ADVENTURERS

Dominica Devil’s Mountain, the Boiling Lake, the Valley of Desolation... from a first glance at the guidebook, Dominica doesn’t sound too welcoming. But that’s good news. The island’s steaming jungles and giddy peaks have so far repelled the sun-lounging masses; likewise the cruise ships and the running-buffet resorts that sustain them. Instead, it offers a thousand kinds of flower, a dozen big waterfalls and a river (so they say) for every day of the year.

Dominica is built for adventure. There is a government-trained squad of nature guides (00 1 767 448 2045) and a healthy crop of eco-aware digs, including the stylish Jungle Bay (www. junglebaydominica.com) and the down-and-dirty Rosalie Forest (www.rosalieforest.com), where you lodge in treehouses deep in the rainforest.

Wildlife highlights include parrot-spotting at Papillote Wilderness Retreat, canoeing at Freshwater Lake and scuba-diving on Castaways Reef. After lunch, you could sign up for a whale-watching jaunt with Dive Dominica (www.divedominica.com).

Best of all, though, is the hike through Morne Trois Pitons National Park to the 92C Boiling Lake. You’ll start with a swim through the cavern complex at Titou Gorge and end by simmering your sore calves in the sulphurous pools of the Valley of Desolation. You could even slap on a face pack of revitalising volcanic mud. Who needs a spa?

The package: Trips Worldwide (0117 311 4400, www.tripsworldwide.co.uk) has a week’s Adventure Package at Jungle Bay Resort, full-board, including hiking, kayaking, and snorkelling excursions; from £1,845pp.

The next best: Tobago – especially for twitchers. The island has one of the world’s biggest populations of birds per square mile, and the spacious former sugar plantation Arnos Vale (www.arnosvalehotel.com) is right in among them. Tropic Breeze (01752 873377, www.tropicbreeze.co.uk) has seven nights from £925pp.

BEST FOR FAMILIES

Antigua Choosing your perfect family base in the Caribbean is likely to be more about the hotel than the island. But you need direct flights, painless transfers and rooms that open straight onto the sand. Step forward Antigua.

For some full-on family-friendliness, go for Jolly Beach (www.jollybeachresort.com). Lounging alongside one of the island’s whitest bays, its 40 tropical acres are crammed with pedalos, movie shows, bikes, volleyball, steel bands and limbo dancing. There’s a free Jolly Kidz Club for under12s: you get baby-sitting, cots, early-evening meals, the lot. The resort has just opened three beachfront cottages, perfect for families.

Carlisle Bay (www.carlisle-bay. com) is the very apogee of Caribbean cool, with boutiquey Asian decor. It too has opened a free children’s club for under13s. Teenagers might prefer Curtain Bluff (www.curtainbluff.com), tooled up with PCs, video games and a raft of watersports.

Beyond the resort gates, Antigua has just enough to keep young minds engaged. Take a nailbiting zip-wire tour through the rainforest canopy or go turtle-spotting with island superguide Eli Fuller (www. antiguaadventures.com). And don’t miss the Sunday-evening “jump-up” on the clifftop at Shirley Heights, where feet fly and ribs sizzle to the sound of steel-pan and soca music.

The package: Kuoni (01306 747008, www.kuoni.co.uk) has an all-inclusive week for four in a superior room at Jolly Beach from £1,117pp, or £533 per child aged 2-11 (£1,134 or £1,104 in a two-bedroom cottage). Or try British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3406, www.ba.com/holidays).

The next best: Round Hill, on Jamaica (www.roundhilljamaica. com), has brilliant villa options and a switched-on kids’ club. A week in a villa sleeping four costs £1,590pp, room-only, with Scott Dunn (020 8682 5020, www.scottdunn.com).

For more ideas, contact the Caribbean Tourist Office on 020 8948 0057 or visit www.caribbean.co.uk

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