Title: What’s a Vacation? Subtitle: Hurricane Irma Destroys Much of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin

September 10, 2017 – I’ve done some thinking and some talking with husband over the years about why we pick the places we pick for vacations.  After many years of marriage, after many vacations (I do like vacations), some common themes arise.  There must be safety and security, of course.  I’m not a thrill-seeker in that area at all.  I don’t need to see riot police, have my papers checked regularly, or have my camera forcibly taken away.  Which is not to say that we obsessively check the State Department website before we travel to other countries.  For our visits, there must also be healthy conditions like safe drinking water, healthy food, no great excess of insect-borne or other disease.  But beyond those safety/security givens, what does anyone look for when choosing a vacation destination?  And what brings you back for more than one visit?  Especially that question.  What makes us return to the same place over and over?  It’s a mighty big planet with lots to see.  Why repeat?

First of all, we must consider what our vacation goal is.  I don’t consider visiting European countries as a real vacation-vacation.  “Vacation” to me is a relaxing, lying around, taking-it-easy type of scenario.  Goofing around at the beach, reading trashy novels, playing catch, lying around the pool, playing board games, fishing, playing golf or tennis, going for a boatride – that’s a vacation.  I’d label visits to exotic European locales (even as exotic as London!) “trips”.  Educational trips, full of sightseeing.  Visiting museums, galleries, touring, hiking, even shopping – those are trips for learning and being wowed by the magical differences between here and there: whether that’s cultural, geographic, nature-related, weather or whatever.  For those “trips” – do we return to that exotic locale after some period of time?  As in my example, London, there’s always something new to explore as it’s a huge city.  The theatre shows change all the time.  Some museum or landmark was closed on a prior visit, so you want to go back.  Or you’re enthralled with some delightful part of the culture – like pubs, or the best Indian food in the world without going all the way to India.  In a non-English-speaking country you might enjoy practicing your second or third language and return to do that.  In Italy, you must see that artwork again and again and again because it is just so amazing.

For relaxing, recharging vacation-vacations, what do we look for?  All of us have knowledge of folks who own vacation homes in addition to their primary residence.  How much must you like a place to fork over the serious money and constant worry to own a home you don’t live in all the time?  In exchange for that money and worry you get a familiar place, in a delightful locale of your choosing, with no reservations required, visits with zero-planning-ahead, no rental fees/hotel costs, and you get to personalize your vacation home to your heart’s and wallet’s content.  And you trade variety for familiarity.  And familiarity is good.  Is that the draw of Disney?  Familiarity and sameness?  This familiarity issue will lead to my ultimate thesis in this post shortly.

There are 25-28 separate island nations in the Caribbean.  Each with its own personality (culture, landscape, food, entertainment, lodging choices, transportation accessibility, etc.).  Many, many years ago I remember saying that I didn’t see any reason to return to any island until you had tried them all.  Twenty-five nations provide pretty endless variety!  So why return to any of them?

But husband and I do.

Across my lifespan I’ve been to seven different islands, from as far north as the Bahamas to as far south as St. Lucia (Mom and Dad took the family to St. Croix when I was 16, after Mom accompanied Dad on a business trip to Puerto Rico and found it fascinating).  But husband and I keep going back to one island, in particular.  Nine visits total, as a matter of fact, spread out over 15-20 years.  Why?  Because it checks those boxes of required characteristics that we look for in a vacation-vacation location.  Ease of access: it takes about two-thirds of a day to get there, not an entire day.  There are multiple flights per day on large American airlines.  Lodging:  we have found a hotel that suits us.  It is clean, it is well-maintained, it is pretty quiet, it is in a spectacular landscape setting, it has decent amenities, there’s a great restaurant onsite, there are numerous outstanding restaurants within walking distance, the hotel is pretty reasonably priced, there are choices of room configurations, the clientele is pleasant, the staff is friendly and helpful, and there is a hint of the exotic as the nation is French Caribbean.

We love Saint Martin.

Can you guess why I’m writing?  Earlier this week Hurricane Irma did significant damage to both the Dutch and French side of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin.  The Dutch side, Sint Maarten, is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Other constituent countries include the Netherlands, Aruba and Curacao. Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius are special municipalities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, if you know of them.  The French side, Saint Martin, is a French overseas collectivity along with St. Bart’s, French Polynesia and some other islands I’ve never heard of.  Martinique is also French but is labelled a French Overseas Region.

Having studied French for a few years in school, we enjoy playing with the language with the locals in St. Martin.  Bon jour!  Ça va? Qu’est-ce que c’est?  Au revoir! The French West Indies “laissez-faire” attitude means there are fewer rules about clothing choices (the men don’t have to wear long pants to dinner like they do at some of the British West Indies – even if the outdoor temperature is above 80°!), clothing just needs to look nice.  We like that.  The overall atmosphere is a little less uptight.  Our favorite lodging is near the “Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean” where French, Caribbean, Italian, and fusion food are some of the best in the world.  French food is one of our favorite cuisines.  “You had me at croissant!”  On Saint Martin you can use your dollar bills or you can use Euros.  Just expect your change to be in Euros.  And in some fine dining establishments you can get 1:1 because they love that American dollar – that means significant savings when the dollar is at 1.3 or 1.5 against the Euro.  The weather is tropical and steady – until tropical storms or hurricanes enter the picture and then it can get dicey.  On one 7-day visit years ago, we had 6 ½ days of rain, as a tropical depression hovered above Puerto Rico, some 200 miles west, not moving for our entire visit, dumping copious amounts of rain the entire time.  But as we stayed on the French side, with that laid-back attitude, I remember heading to one of those fine-dining establishments for dinner one night with umbrella in hand, dressed as nicely as ever.  When we arrived at the restaurant after our 10-minute walk, I was not surprised, but stifled a chuckle, when I saw some of our fellow diners dressed as nicely as we were, but wearing their plastic Tevas under the white tablecloth instead of their Italian loafers and stilettos.  Ordinarily temperatures are in the low 80’s during the day and the mid-70’s at night.  Fabulous weather.  The French side isn’t busy when we visit during the shoulder seasons, in Spring or late Fall.

The quiet and relaxing setting, the natural ocean beauty, reasonable prices, the beach boy providing food and cocktail service to your chaise lounge – oh my, who wouldn’t return time and time again?  Especially when the restaurant staff welcomes you back so warmly after you’ve been gone for 3 or 4 years?

That familiarity: warm, personal greetings from staff who remember you and whom we know by nickname, knowing which restaurants have the best food, best wine, best view – not feeling off-put by the scary roads, rundown buildings, intimidating local bus rides to the capitol (for the bargain of $2 each).  That familiarity keeps you coming back.  I write “lessons learned” after each visit – which configuration lodging unit did we have?  Did we like it?  Did we like the floor we were on?  How was the wifi (for monitoring weather)?  Was the manager’s reception good?  What is Laurent’s beard like this year?  How are Chantal’s children doing?  Which offsite restaurants did we like the best?  Did we rent a car or just use the bus and taxi?  It’s easy to remember all the details when you write them down!!  But I write them down because I know we’ll be back.

Right now, in the aftermath of Cat 5 Hurricane Irma, Saint Martin has apparently endured damage to 95% of the buildings on the French side.  The nice onsite hotel restaurant described above where the beach boy picks up the lunch food and cocktails to deliver to the beach and where we have our continental breakfast every morning has been destroyed.  Not a surprise, I guess, with 185-mph winds and a largely wooden structure.

Non-military flights to Sint Maarten/Saint Martin are cancelled for the time-being, as rescue and supply missions are the only planes allowed in and out.  The new terminal, which just opened in 2006, has had its roof blown off, so that’s a big mess.

We’ll find another place for our next tropical vacation-vacation.  We were just on Saint Martin in May of this year, so we can’t be greedy, I suppose.  Hurricane Hugo did a number on Saint Martin in 1989, damaging some structures that weren’t repaired until after 2000 – and one timeshare resort on the Dutch side just fell off the face of the earth because owners and managers couldn’t decide on how to rebuild.  Now it’s just gone, empty buildings destroyed and debris carried away.

I don’t think that will happen to our favorite place.  It’ll probably take most of a year to get back to some semblance of “normal” but unfortunately, hurricanes hit tropical locations this time of year.  I’m afraid it’s sad but to be expected.

For us, maybe it’s time to re-introduce a little variety and add a new tropical island to the list.