By David Swanson

The Moorish architecture of Cap Juluca on Maundays Bay helped set the style for resorts to come on Anguilla.

On my first trip to Tortola almost two decades ago, I was struck how the British Virgin Island’s northern coastline was ribboned with tranquil coves of plush white sand.

Some of the beaches were deserted at midday. Others percolated with traffic from mom-and-pop inns and barefoot restaurants. Cane Garden Bay wasn’t quite virgin, but it was still a pretty special hideout, looking much like the tropical beach of my dreams.

Since then, the island’s cruise ship pier has been greatly expanded. Tortola, with a population of just 23,000, now plays host to 400,000 cruise visitors annually.

On a trip to Tortola a few years ago, I was dismayed to discover that the main town was clogged with sunburned day-trippers in search of gift shops and restrooms. Outside the capital of Road Town, roads were cluttered with new cars and swift traffic. Worse, slender Cane Garden Bay was now lined with hundreds of beach loungers and aggressive vendors.

Soon after, I found myself on Anguilla, just 100 miles east. I walked resplendent Rendezvous Bay at dawn, sharing it only with scampering shore birds, and I walked it at dusk when a few ramshackle beach bars pulsed with easy reggae for a crowd of five or eight.

When I explored by car there were no swarms of traffic. It was peaceful, much closer to the Caribbean I fantasize about when I’m home.

The distinction: Anguilla does not cater to cruise ships.

Cruising the Caribbean is a big business. Destinations such as Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Grand Cayman and Haiti have built or are planning new docking facilities, while established ports such as Antigua and Barbados are expanding, to be accessible to more and bigger behemoths.

After a recent port expansion, St. Kitts, which a decade ago had relatively few cruise ship visits, is projecting more than 1 million cruise visitors for the upcoming season (compared with 100,000 stay-over visitors).

Places I never saw cruise ships at all as recently as a decade ago are new favorites for cruise lines. Bonaire, St. Vincent and Tobago are among the outposts that now receive regular visits by 2,000- to 3,000-passenger ships. Tiny Bequia in the Grenadines will receive a succession of 500- to 800-passenger ships this winter. Even St. John, home to the Virgin Islands National Park, will be visited by Holland America’s 790-passenger Prinsendam.

None of this was on my radar when I started writing about the region two decades ago.

For those of us who want to spend more than a few hours on an island, and might like to experience the Caribbean’s charms beyond cruiseville’s T-shirt shops and jewelry emporiums, our world is shrinking.

Here are five islands that still deliver the uncrowded escape you may be thinking of. Yes, they all receive cruise ships, but except as noted, they’re of the 300-passenger-or-fewer variety.

Anguilla

Anguilla, supine and scrubby, doesn’t offer a lot of the usual volcanic, green Caribbean scenery, but its 30-some beaches are world-class beauties, and many remain undeveloped. Best of all, no cruise ships hog the view (the biggest ships would be taller than Anguilla’s 213-foot highest point).

The island takes its dining cues from St. Martin, 7 miles away, and the menu ranges from grilled lobster with your feet in the sand on a speck called Sandy Island, to sushi and pan-Asian at Cha Cha San, to elegant repasts at the main resorts.

Resort prices could make a backpacker swoon. Cap Juluca on glorious Maundays Bay remains a tried-and-true operation, the lights of St. Martin gently twinkling in the distance (low season rates from $495; capjuluca.com). Modest but clean rooms are found at Anguilla Great House, which sits smack-dab in the middle of glorious Rendezvous Bay (from $210; anguillagreathouse.com).

Caveat: The 516-passenger Europa 2 will visit Anguilla this winter on Dec. 30 and 512-passenger Saga Pearl II calls on Feb. 3.

Culebra and Vieques

Culebra and Vieques, which are satellites lolling off the east coast of Puerto Rico, have yet to taste mass tourism. That’s largely because the U.S. Navy owned much of the two islands during the region’s big tourism buildup, using them for troop training and bombing practice. The Navy left Culebra in 1975, and in 2003 Camp Garcia on Vieques became conservation land administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The islands are gradually awakening to a tourism-focused future, but cruise ships have ignored them.

Sleepy Culebra, the smaller of the two, can be explored in a leisurely couple of days. Fine snorkeling reefs shelter the island’s beaches, several of which are reached on unmarked trails. Flamenco, a mile-long semicircle of pillow-soft sand, regularly appears on lists of the Caribbean’s greatest beaches — just one small hotel and a campground overlook Flamenco. An uninhabited offshore island, Culebrita, has other coves — a great day trip.

Vieques is considerably larger, almost twice the size of nearby St. Thomas, but just the middle third has been developed. The two ends of the island, former Navy land, contain miles and miles of bush and beaches. There’s a modest restaurant scene in the two towns, and you can kayak through a bioluminescent bay that is one of the world’s brightest. A 156-room branch of the W Hotel chain opened here in 2010, dosing Vieques with its brand of cool.

Most accommodations are simpler, and I like Malecón House, which offers 10 chic rooms, next to the seaside village of Esperanza (from $160; maleconhouse.com). On Culebra there are limited options, but the family-run Club Seabourne is a cheerful, well-appointed inn on Fulladoza Bay (from $169; clubseabourne.com).

Nevis

Approaching Nevis by boat from its larger sibling St. Kitts, one cannot help but be entranced by the near-perfect shape of Nevis Peak, a 3,232-foot conical volcanic apex that makes the island look like a giant Hershey’s Kiss adrift on the swelling Caribbean Sea.

The topographical grandeur was perfect for the sugar days, when the island was robed in cane fields and became one of the region’s wealthiest. Much of that history still can be found — the ruins of Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace are next to the museum, and British naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson seduced Fanny Nisbet here, and they married at Montpelier Plantation.

Several plantations have been converted to small inns, including Montpelier, where polished meals meet refined service, high on a shoulder of the gently slumbering volcano (from $225; montpeliernevis.com). Another is Golden Rock, with old stone walls that tell stories and a garden that just won’t quit (from $180; goldenrocknevis.com).

The lobster sandwich at Golden Rock is perhaps the island’s favorite lunch, while green vervet monkeys scamper through the steep jungle next door. For sundowners, head to Sunshine’s Beach Bar on Pinney’s Beach and order a Killer Bee. Little more than shacks in the sand, Sunshine’s is the convivial meeting place for visitors and locals alike, including the occasional famous face (the Four Seasons Resort is a stone’s throw away).

Caveat: The 790-passenger Princendam visits on Dec. 23.

Virgin Gorda

Tortola in the British Virgin Islands may be off-limits for cruise-phobic types, but this archipelago of 60 or so islands and outcrops still has backwaters where you won’t see big ships (except, perhaps, on the horizon). Chief among them is Virgin Gorda, third-largest island in the chain.

The island’s most famous lure is the Baths, a geological formation comprising house-size boulders tumbled along a pacific bay. Grottoes and passageways thread this evocative setting, and though it’s popular with day-trippers from Tortola, a benefit of staying on the island is exploring before and after the crowds. Good beaches flank the Baths, but my preference is Savannah Bay, a languid, undeveloped carpet of white sand.

For lodging, the scene-stealer is Little Dix Bay (from $420; rosewoodhotels.com), built by Laurance Rockefeller and celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2014. Offering a more rustic experience is Guavaberry Spring Bay (from $160; guavaberryspringbay.com) with one- and two-bedroom rondavels located within walking distance of the Baths.

Caveat: The 684-passenger Ocean Princess calls on Virgin Gorda on Dec. 30, and the 700-passenger Azamara Journey visits March 6.

Bermuda

I know Bermuda isn’t in the Caribbean, but this mid-Atlantic outpost has its share of tropical attributes, and although quite a few cruise ships call, they do so primarily in summer. In winter, the island is virtually ship-free.

Winter temperatures are cooler than islands to the south. Daytime highs reach the middle to upper 60s, with water temperatures in the same range. For those seeking a more developed destination with all the shopping, dining and diversions of larger islands, Bermuda delivers.

What’s more, winter is Bermuda’s off-season — the opposite of the Caribbean. Beaches are less crowded, hotels lower prices and restaurants offer deals. Through April 15, the Little Venice group of restaurants sells three three-course dinners at any of seven restaurants for $149. Included are venues like Harbourfront and Blu, where entrees typically run $30 to $44 (diningbermuda.com).

Whale watching occurs in winter, with March and April the peak viewing months. Divers will be delighted by the shipwreck opportunities (Scuba Diving magazine ranks Bermuda as the region’s top wreck-dive location). Golf is another popular sport that remains in full swing during winter — Bermuda has more golf courses per square mile than anyplace in the world.

Bermuda is also easier and closer to access than most of the Caribbean’s smaller islands (including all of those cited above).

Caveat: Several cruise ships will stop at Bermuda in December on trans-Atlantic repositioning itineraries. Otherwise, the 2015 cruise season doesn’t begin until mid-April.

David Swanson wrote the Affordable Caribbean column for Caribbean Travel & Life magazine for 14 years.

Even farther off the beaten track

There is a handful of smaller islands of limited infrastructure where cruise ships never visit, year-round. Among the crowd-free destinations: Anegada, Saba, St. Eustatius, Montserrat, Marie-Galante, Mustique, Carriacou, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.

And a couple of the region’s largest islands that host plenty of cruise ships still have large swaths that haven’t been developed for cruise tourism. On Jamaica, the Port Antonio area and the entire south coast are ship-free. Everywhere outside San Juan on Puerto Rico is devoid of cruise visits.

Research cruise ship schedules for ports worldwide at www.cruisetimetables.com

Photos by David Swanson/Special Contributor

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