Things to Do in Cayman Islands

Grand Cayman packs a surprising amount of variety into an island you can drive around in an hour. Seven Mile Beach is the headliner - a crescent of fine white coral sand along the western shore that actually stretches about five and a half miles, lined with resorts and condos but never feeling overcrowded because the beach itself is wide and the water is impossibly clear. The real Grand Cayman reveals itself once you leave the beach strip.

Stingray City, a series of shallow sandbars in the North Sound, is the island's most famous experience - southern stingrays glide up to you in waist-deep water, brushing against your legs like underwater cats looking for a handout. The experience is best in the early morning before the cruise ship groups arrive, so book a private charter that departs by 7 AM. George Town's waterfront has been polished for cruise passengers, but duck into the backstreets and you will find the Cayman Islands National Museum in the old Courts Building, with exhibits on the islands' turtle-fishing heritage and the 1932 storm that shaped modern Cayman society.

The Mastic Trail is a two-mile path through one of the last remaining old-growth dry forests in the Caribbean - the 200-year-old mastic trees are massive and the trail passes through mangrove wetlands, dry shrubland, and ancient woodland. It is flat and manageable but hot, so start early and bring plenty of water. On the north side of the island, the Crystal Caves are a network of caverns filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and crystal-clear pools, set in a tropical forest that the Smith family has preserved for generations.

Pedro St. James, known as the birthplace of Cayman democracy, is a restored 1780s great house on a bluff above the south coast with period furnishings and a multimedia history presentation. For diving, Grand Cayman's west wall drops from 60 feet to thousands within swimming distance of shore - sites like Trinity Caves and Balboa are accessible by boat in under ten minutes from Seven Mile Beach.

But the serious divers fly to Little Cayman, population around 200, where Bloody Bay Wall drops vertically from 20 feet to over 6,000 feet in what is consistently rated one of the top five wall dives in the world. Visibility regularly exceeds 150 feet and the sponge and coral growth on the wall face is extraordinary.