Local Yokel

If you know me, you know how much I love to travel. I have been very blessed to have traveled so many places and look at traveling as an experience rather than a vacation. I’ve been on my fair share of beaches, however the real treasures lie beyond the tourist hot spots. Asking the locals where they go is the best advice I could ever give anyone going anywhere. My mother has always done it and it’s something I’ve learned works- really well! On a cruise in 2002, we (as a family of four) took an island tour in one of those carts they haul tourists around in. After the tour was over, we asked to be dropped off at Meghan’s Bay where we were told was “the place to be”. It was the biggest bay on the island and all our cruise friends we going to meet there. Our guide told us, “Let me show you my favorite place, where there isn’t the commotion of 2 cruise ships full of vacationers. If you don’t like it, I will take you to Meghan’s Bay”. Cautiously, we took his advice our destination was Coki Beach. Oh My Goodness… to this day, 11 years later, I have never seen anything so beautiful. We joked that this must be where they film all those Royal Caribbean commercials, but I believe there is some truth in that sarcastic comment. I will be going on another cruise this November and the only thing I asked out of the 10 day trip was that we go to Coki Beach (I also asked that we open up a tiki bar and live there. I mean, come on, would you ever want to leave?!).

The morale of the story is, you can plan and research and have all the knowledge that books and internet can provide (in fact, I encourage it!), but for some of the best memories, you just have to trust the locals!