You'll find some of the very best hotels and restaurants in the Caribbean on Barbados' glam west coast. But the island's appeal is far broader than that. For British holidaymakers, it offers a winning combination of the familiar and exotic, with Anglican churches and cricket greens in every village - yet also green monkeys sometimes appearing in your hotel garden.
The beaches are good and varied, with the sea usually mill-pond calm on the west coast, and with surf in the south. It's an island where, by and large, everything works, and the Bajans are a self-confident, dynamic lot who get things done.