Blank, perplexed expressions. It was the reaction I got when I told folks I was going to Canouan, a tiny three-square-mile island in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines archipelago. "Where's that?" my pals would inquire, even the most well-traveled. I opened a map on my phone and dragged my finger over the Caribbean Sea, squeezing the screen in and out until I reached a question-mark-shaped speck surrounded by Barbados, St. Lucia, and Grenada. I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of discovery. They'd answer, "I've never heard of that." To be honest, neither had I.
In the Caribbean, Canouan is a bit of dordle a mystery: It has managed to stay a secret, except for a select few — an in-the-know crowd who come to dock their million-dollar boats (Robert Downey, Jr.) or avoid the paparazzi, despite being just a 45-minute flight from Barbados (George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio). It's even been referred to as "the area where billionaires go to get away from millionaires." However, not long ago, the island lacked running water and paved roads, and it was home to more turtles than humans. There's now a private jet runway, a slew of new luxury hotels and villas, and a multimillion-dollar super yacht marina. Even yet, getting here seems like discovering something new.
Canouan looks like many other Caribbean islands from the air: blue seas, broken only by emerald-green hills and shiny, masted sailboats — every tropical travel cliché is on full show. Closer inspection reveals inhabitants congregating on the streets of a tiny, bustling town and unobstructed ocean vistas around every curve as the island slowly unfolds. There are no throngs of cruise passengers, tacky souvenir stores, or overdeveloped swaths of hotels and restaurants. Instead, traffic is stopped to allow turtles to pass (Canouan is the Carib name for "island of turtles"), and the natural beauty is so untouched that you feel like you're among the first to arrive. Even better, it's all located just below the hurricane zone, avoiding hurricanes that have traditionally wreaked havoc on the area, so there's never a terrible time to go.
The allure is obvious, so its delightfully low profile is likely attributable to its rather distant location, which may be accessed by private charter, while ferries and commercial flights — the latter stopping on numerous other islands — are also viable possibilities. (From locations including St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Vincent, and Grenada, Mandarin Oriental's own aircraft also makes the 20- to 25-minute flight.)
We went from New York to Barbados, where a specialized staff met us at the airport and took us away to our private charter on SVG Air, where our baggage and medical paperwork were taken care of. We arrived at the Mandarin Oriental, a beautiful, gated property that relaunched the Pink Sands Club in 2018.
