by Laura Dannen Redman From Conde Nast Traveler

Representatives of Turks and Caicos say they’re ready to welcome travelers.

Following a brutal September, the hurricane-battered islands have banded together to as ‘One Caribbean Family’ to deliver a simple message: Come. Please come.

We’ve heard this refrain all too often in the last month, from our readers on social media and friends in passing: “I thought the Caribbean was a mess because of Hurricane Irma—and Jose? And Maria?” “The islands looked ruined in the photos I saw online.” “There isn’t fresh water, right? Or electricity?”
They’re not wrong: Nearly a dozen Caribbean islands were extremely hard hit by record-setting hurricanes this fall. Following the onslaught of Category 3, 4, and 5 storms, Barbuda was barely inhabitable, its prime minister said; the British Virgin Islands were devastated, with homes reduced to their foundations, said the director of tourism; and Puerto Rico, already troubled by bankruptcy and an unreliable power grid, faces a humanitarian crisis.

It almost feels…dirty, to talk about planning a Caribbean vacation right now. We get it. But this isn’t the whole story. The Caribbean is one million square miles, from Trinidad and Tobago off the coast of Venezuela all the way up to the Bahamas, just 50 miles from the southern tip of Florida. To lump all these islands together is the equivalent of comparing the weather in Portland, Maine to Atlanta, Georgia. And while several islands need our help—our donations, our attention, our recovery efforts—more than two dozen others simply need us to visit.

“Seventy-five percent of the Caribbean is absolutely untouched by the hurricanes,” Hugh Riley, secretary general and executive director of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), told press in a call last week. “We don’t want to diminish what our neighbors have gone through, but one of the best ways to help the Caribbean is to visit the Caribbean.” In 2016, tourism accounted for 2.3 million jobs across the islands, and roughly 15 percent of their collective GDPs, said Ninan Chacko, CEO of Travel Leaders Group, which accounts for one-third of all travel agents worldwide. Once hurricane season ends in the Atlantic on November 30, high season kicks in across the islands. “Many of our Caribbean island destinations are welcoming guests for fall and winter travel and hotels, beaches, and attractions are open,” added Riley.

Condé Nast Traveler is keeping tabs on when hotels and resorts in our purview will reopen across the region. You can check our Readers’ Choice Awards page for a special report on the Caribbean in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association has compiled this regularly updated page of island updates—essentially a list of who’s open for business, and who’s not—that we’ll be checking. We encourage you to do the same.

Open for Business
Antigua. Aruba. Bahamas. Barbados. Belize. Bermuda. Bonaire. Cayman Islands. Cuba. Curaçao. Dominican Republic. Guadeloupe. Grenada. Haiti. Jamaica. Martinique. Montserrat. Saba. St. Eustatius. St. Lucia. St. Kitts & Nevis. St. Vincent & The Grenadines. Suriname. Trinidad and Tobago. Turks and Caicos
Road to Recovery
Anguilla. Barbuda. British Virgin Islands. Dominica. Puerto Rico. St. Barts. St. Croix. St. John. Sint Maarten/St. Martin. St. Thomas
As for cruises, 15 of 62 total ports in the Caribbean region are not yet operational, “with several of those expected to reopen very soon, including some ports in the next several weeks,” according to the Cruise Lines International Association. As of October 6, the ports that are on the road to recovery included: Grand Turk Island, Turks and Caicos; Philipsburg, Sint Maarten; St. Thomas, USVI; St. John, USVI; Roseau, Dominica; Tortola, BVI; Gustavia, St. Barts; Guadeloupe/FWI; Jost Van Dyke, BVI; Virgin Gorda, BVI; Road Bay, Anguilla; St. Croix, USVI; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Marigot, St. Martin; and Isabel Segunda, Vieques, Puerto Rico.

IMAGE: Turks Caicos Brilliant Studios

For more on this story go to: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/the-caribbean-is-open-for-fall-and-winter-travel