Barbados
Dates: usually 10-12 days in early February - 2001,2002,2003,2004,2005
Reason: workshops in computational geometry
Stayed at: Bellairs Research Institute, owned by McGill.
Where to begin...
Postcard beaches, warm water, colorful fish, tall coconut palm trees.
The west coast, where I stay, has calm water and long narrow sandy
beaches. It's easy to find a spot with nobody else around. The east
coast has lots of cliffs that huge waves crash onto. Worth a half-day
trip, at least.
Barbados is pretty expensive (groceries, clothing, restaurants, hotels).
On the cheap side are: McGill's accomodations, Chefette fast food chain,
rum shacks...
Little things to do: travel with a loud reggae bus (for public
transportation, you can use the boring big blue buses, the smaller yellow
reggae buses, or the awesome *loud* reggae buses that come along once in a
while). If staying at Bellairs, keep an eye out for the
monkeys, and also go snorkeling or scuba diving.