Lonely Planet Jamaica

Paul Clammer

Description

Lonely Planet Jamaica is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Dance to the island's reggae soundtrack, go snorkeling at delicate Lime Cay, or swim in the cool mountain pools of Reach Falls -all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Jamaica and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet's Jamaica Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - cuisine, history, culture, wildlife. Covers Kingston, Blue Mountains, Ocho Rios, Dry Harbour Mountains, Port Antonio, Rio Grande Valley, Montego Bay, Negril, Mayfield Falls, Bluefields, Cockpit Country, Mandeville, Treasure Beach and more The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Jamaica, our most comprehensive guide to Jamaica, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less traveled. Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's Caribbean Islands guide. About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world's number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and phrasebooks for 120 languages, and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You'll also find our content online, and in mobile apps, video, 14 languages, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more, enabling you to explore every day. Lonely Planet enables the curious to experience the world fully and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves, near or far from home. TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves, it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

Sujets

• Jamaica

Informations

• Publié par: Lonely Planet
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9781787012028
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 33 Mo

Extrait

Jamaica

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to Jamaica
Jamaica's Top 15
Need to Know
If You Like
Month by Month
Itineraries
Eat & Drink Like a Local
Outdoor Activities
Regions at a Glance

On The Road

Kingston, Blue Mountains & Southeast Coast
Kingston, Blue Mountains & the Southeast Coast Highlights
Kingston
Around Kingston
Port Royal
Bull Bay
Hellshire Beach Recreation Area
May Pen & Around
Blue Mountains
Irish Town
Newcastle
Section & Clydesdale
Mavis Bank
Hagley Gap & Penlyne Castle
Southeast Coast
Morant Bay
Bath
Ocho Rios, Port Antonio & North Coast
Ocho Rios, Port Antonio & the North Coast Highlights
Ocho Rios
East of Ocho Rios
Reggae Beach to Boscobel Beach
Oracabessa
Galina Point & Little Bay
West of Ocho Rios
St Ann's Bay
Priory & Around
Runaway Bay
Discovery Bay
Brown's Town
Nine Mile
Port Antonio
East of Port Antonio
Port Antonio to Fairy Hill
Boston Bay
Long Bay
Manchioneal
West of Port Antonio
Getting There & Away
Charles Town
Orange Bay
Robin's Bay
Rio Grande Valley
Moore Town
Montego Bay & Northwest Coast
Montego Bay & Northwest Coast Highlights
Montego Bay
East of Montego Bay
Ironshore & Rose Hall
Falmouth
Glistening Waters
Duncans
South of Montego Bay
Lethe
North Cockpit Country
Good Hope Estate
Windsor
Negril & West Coast
Negril & West Coast Highlights
Negril
Negril to Mayfield Falls
Green Island Harbour & Around
Lucea
Mayfield
South of Negril
Little Bay & Around
South Coast & Central Highlands
South Coast & Central Highlands Highlights
Treasure Beach & Around
Treasure Beach
Alligator Pond
Lovers' Leap
Black River to Bluefields
Black River
Whitehouse
Bluefields & Belmont
Mandeville & Around
Mandeville
Mile Gully & Around
South Cockpit Country
Accompong
Santa Cruz
Troy & Around
Maggotty
Middle Quarters
Christiana

Understand

Understand Jamaica
Jamaica Today
History
Jamaican Way of Life
Jamaican Arts
Landscapes & Wildlife

Survive

Directory AZ
Accommodations
Electricity
Embassies & Consulates
LGBTI Travelers
Health
Internet Access
Legal Matters
Money
Opening Hours
Post
Public Holidays
Safe Travel
Telephone
Time
Toilets
Tourist Information
Travelers with Disabilities
Visas
Volunteering
Women Travelers
Work
Transport
Getting There & Away
Getting Around
Behind the Scenes
Our Writers
Welcome to Jamaica

Jamaica is the Caribbean country that comes with its own soundtrack. Groove to its singular rhythm as you explore beyond the beaches and all-inclusives.


Jah’s Garden
Even in a region as crammed with jewels as the Caribbean, Jamaica is a powerfully beautiful island. Jamaica begins with crystalline waters flowing over gardens of coral, lapping onto soft sandy beaches, then rises past red soil and lush banana groves into sheer mountains. Rushing waterfalls seem to erupt out of nowhere. Jamaican culture can be a daunting subject for foreigners to understand, but ultimately it’s a matter of appreciating this great green garden of a land and how its cyclical rhythms set the pace of so much island life.

Adventure Playground
While Jamaica's beaches are certainly alluring, this is a country to dive into, literally and figuratively. Beneath the waves there's great scuba diving and snorkeling, and you can float on the water too with lazy bamboo-raft trips (let someone else pole). The adventurous can go caving, or get their hiking boots on to explore the remote crags and forests of this crumpled landscape. You don't even need to be as fit as Usain Bolt to enjoy the hike through lush mountains to the top of Blue Mountain Peak.

Island Riddims
With Bob Marley, Jamaica gifted us the first global superstar from the developing world. But he didn’t spring from nowhere – this tiny island has musical roots that reach back to the folk songs of West Africa and forward to the electronic beats of contemporary dancehall. Simply put, Jamaica is a musical powerhouse, a fact reflected not just in the bass of the omnipresent sound systems, but in the lyricism of the patois language and the gospel sounds from the island’s many churches. Music is life in Jamaica, and you’ll soon find yourself swaying along with it.

Caribbean Flavors
Like many aspects of Jamaican culture, the food is a creole, born somewhere between the Old and New Worlds. African spice rubs have evolved into delicious jerk, while yam, rice and plantain form the basis of rich stews, and fish abound in local waters. Throw in the astounding array of tropical fruits that seem to drip from the trees, washed down with a shot of rum, and you can see (and taste) how the Jamaican cultural story retains its original voice while adapting to the setting – and of course, rhythms – of the Caribbean.

Black River | GREG JOHNSTON / GETTY IMAGES ©


Why I Love Jamaica
By Paul Clammer, Writer
It's the spicy plate of jerk washed down with a cold Red Stripe beer. No, it's the giant speakers of a sound system blasting out dub reggae after dark, while the DJ cues up the next track on his decks stationed under a mango tree. No, the Rastafari street art in a downtown Kingston neighborhood. It's the cheeky tour guide at the waterfalls getting the tour group to strike Usain Bolt's lightning pose. It's getting lost in Maroon country and sunsets over the sea. What, you wanted only one thing I love about Jamaica? Wait, let me try again...
Jamaica's Top 15

Best Beaches
Jamaica’s beach experiences are as varied as the island’s topography. The tiny, delicate Lime Cay, only reachable by boat from Port Royal, is perfect for snorkeling and picnics. Hellshire Beach heaves with Kingstonians and reverberates with loud music, its wooden shacks doing a roaring trade in fried fish. The north coast’s Winnifred Beach draws the locals with its azure waters and weekend parties, while Negril’s Seven Mile Beach is crisscrossed by Jet Ski riders, and its long crescent of white sand lined with the bodies of sun worshippers.

Seven Mile Beach, Negril | RICHARD BROADWELL / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©


Top Experiences
Reggae Grooves
If there’s any cultural trend that defines Jamaica to the rest of the world, it’s reggae music – quite literally the soundtrack of the island. The reggae calendar is dominated by two huge events that celebrate the country’s love of ‘riddims,’ both worth planning your trip around – Rebel Salute, held every January in St Ann, and then Reggae Sumfest , held in Montego Bay in the middle of the broiling Jamaican summer. Break out a sweat amid the throbbing mass of bodies and the nonstop dancing.

Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest, Montego Bay | SHELBY SOBLICK / GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Rafting the Rio Grande
No less a celebrity than Errol Flynn started the habit of sending discerning tourists on romantic, moonlit rafting trips through the Rio Grande Valley , from Berridale to Rafter’s Rest at St Margaret’s Bay. These days the experience isn’t quite as exclusive as it was when Mr Flynn was running the show – the Rio Grande rafting trips are actually quite affordable as Jamaican tourism activities go – but if the moon is full, you can still pole onto the waters, which turn silver and unspeakably romantic.

Paddleboarding on the Rio Grande | CAREY CHEN / 500PX ©


Top Experiences
Kingston Nightlife
Whether you’re attending a nightclub or a street dance, expect a sweaty, lively, no-holds-barred event. Dress up to the nines and follow the locals’ lead. At a street dance, two giant speakers are placed facing each other, the street pounding with the bass, while nightclubs provide a similar experience indoors. Expect to be pulled into the melee as the locals will want to see how well you can dance, and bump and grind to some dancehall riddims or slowy skank to the deepest dub.

EVERYNIGHT IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©


Top Experiences
Climbing Blue Mountain Peak
A night hike to reach Jamaica’s highest point by sunrise, your path lit by the sparks of myriad fireflies, is an experience unlike any other. As you climb, the vegetation becomes less and less tropical, until you’re hiking amid stunted trees draped with old man’s beard (lichen) and giant ferns. In the predawn cold at the summit, you wait in rapt silence as the first rays of the sun wash over the densely forested mountain peaks all around you, illuminating the distant coffee plantations and Cuba beyond.

DAVID NEIL MADDEN / GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Negril
So you’ve walked on the snowy sands of Negril’s Seven Mile Beach, wandered past the nude sunbathers, seen the sun sink behind the horizon in a fiery ball, plunged into the ocean to scrub your soul and fended off all the hustlers. How about topping off all of those experiences by snorkeling or scuba diving in the cerulean waters that lap against the cliffs, and then rocking out to reggae or dancehall at one of Negril's many music nights?

Negril | RAWDVS1 / BUDGET TRAVEL ©


Top Experiences
Perfect Retreats in Treasure Beach
The greatest, most interesting varieties of accommodations in Jamaica can be found in Treasure Beach, on Jamaica’s south coast. Here, instead of huge all-inclusive resorts, you’ll find quiet, friendly guesthouses; artsy enclaves dreamed up by theater set designers; Rasta retreats favored by budget backpackers; and private villas that are some of the classiest, most elegant luxury residences in the country. Aside from beds and bathrooms, some places offer interesting extras such as cooking classes, rooftop yoga, farm-to-table banquets and movie nights.

GARY CLARKE / 500PX ©


Top Experiences
Escape to Brighton
With its empty, quiet beaches and somnolent pace of life, the fishing community of Brighton exudes a certain timelessness that has long disappeared from Jamaica's other coastal areas. Here you can plunge into the Blue