Moonracerfarm Belize: Where do people who live in the Caribbean vacation?

Why, they vacation in the Caribbean, of course.

Part of the reason Tom and I moved to Belize was because we fell in love with the Caribbean while visiting Tom's parents' condo on St. Thomas, USVI. From the first time we went there, sometime in the early 90s, we talked about moving to the Caribbean. But, in addition to the problem of needing jobs, we also recognized that horse keeping on an island was impractical at best. So, for ten years or so, we toyed with the idea of moving from NY to somewhere warm, probably the southern US, but didn't do anything about it until we vacationed in Belize and realized that the Caribbean lifestyle was available on the mainland in a place where we could have our horses and create jobs for ourselves.

For the past almost ten years of living in Belize, we have vacationed in Mexico and Guatemala and parts of the US that we hadn't seen prior to moving to Belize, and we plan to continue doing that. But, we have friends who have a house in Belize and a house in St. John, USVI, and they happened to be in Belize at the beginning of the year when we got in over our heads with a big project at Moonracer, and they put on their work clothes and helped us get our project done. A couple of months ago we asked what we could ever do to repay them, and they laughed and said we could take a trip to St. John and help them with a project on their house that has proven to be a little bigger than expected. Since we love the USVI anyway, and Belize is very quiet in September, we got plane tickets out of Cancun planned a couple of working vacation weeks in St. John.

Our view from bed as we wake up in the morning
at the guest house

We have been having a wonderful and productive time. Our friends own and manage vacation rentals, so we have been staying in one of their very beautiful vacation rentals, complete with a hot tub for a nightly soak.

Full moon between cacti at the top of Ram's Head

We have done a number of really fun things, including a full moon night hike to Ram's Head and a swim in Salt Pond Bay under the moonlight.

Setting sun over Salt Pond Bay

View of Coral Bay from the top of the hill

We hiked up the hill to get the mountaintop view of Coral Bay.

The condos at the Elysian, where we used to stay pre-Belize

We visited Tom's parents' old condo.

View of Coral Bay from our friends' deck

The rest of the view from our friends' deck

We took a day and went on a motorboat snorkeling tour around the island. We've taken picnic dinners to a private beach, eaten at a number of really great restaurants, and have had cocktails on the deck with beautiful views almost every night.

Despite the fact that it's hurricane season, we've had mostly great weather, with just a few much-needed afternoon showers to fill the cisterns. We've also done enough work that our friends have been glad to have us here. And we've learned that a great vacation spot is a great vacation spot, even when it's a lot like home.