Journal — st barths
A Week in St Barths, Off the Festive Calendar
Everyone books the fortnight between Christmas and New Year. The island is better in the three weeks either side of it, and costs a fraction of the price.
St Barths in the last week of November is a quieter island than the one people photograph. The trade winds have settled, the beach restaurants at Saline and Gouverneur have reopened after the autumn closure, and the villas on Pointe Milou are still trading at low-season rates while the December calendar fills behind them.
The best hours here are early. A car down to Colombier before eight, the twenty-minute walk in over the headland, and the bay is empty until the first tenders arrive from Gustavia around eleven. By then you want to be back at the house with the shutters open and breakfast on the terrace.
What surprises first-time guests is how short every drive is. Nothing on the island is more than twenty-five minutes away, which means the choice of villa is about aspect and privacy, not location. Pointe Milou and Marigot give sunset and calm water; Lurin and Gouverneur give the long Atlantic view and a hillside walk down to the sand.
Eat once at a table you booked a month ago, once at a beach shack you did not, and once at home. Villa chefs on St Barths are largely French-trained and work from the same suppliers as the restaurants, so a dinner at the house is rarely the compromise it sounds.
If you are weighing dates, compare the last week of November or the first week of December against the festive fortnight before you commit. The weather is close to identical and the difference in rate will usually pay for the staff.