Discover a choice of sugar-white beaches edged by lavish resorts and duty free stores and offering a vibrant nightlife with fine dining restaurants, bars, nightclubs and casino action.
Best Beaches in Grand Bahama
With 97km (60mi) of sandy shoreline Grand Bahama Island offers a choice of stunning beaches for the perfect Caribbean honeymoon experience.
Xanadu Beach
Unwind on the soft powder-white sands of this 1.6km-long palm-fringed beach that shelves into calm turquoise waters. Enjoy swimming and a range of water sports that includes snorkelling, boating, jet skiing and parasailing.
Come for a day or stay longer at the beachfront Xanadu Beach Resort & Marina (once the home of the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes).
If the beach gets too busy for your liking, walk in either direction to find your own slice of solitude. To the east lies Silver Point Beach.
Xanadu Beach is located on the southwest of Grand Bahama and is conveniently close to Freeport’s resorts, most of which offer a shuttle bus service to the beach.
Lucaya Beach
Pick your own spot to sunbathe on this long stretch of palm-fringed powder-white sand that fronts a selection of fine resorts such as the Pelican Bay at Lucaya.
Or stay at the mega-resort complex at the Westin Grand Bahama Island and Sheraton Grand Bahama Island at Our Lucaya Resorts, which feature every convenience imaginable including a kids’ venue, two golf courses, a casino and upmarket duty free shopping mall.
Facilities such as sun loungers, umbrellas, showers and restrooms, beachfront bars and water sports activities are all available from the various beachside resorts.
Fortuna Beach
Also sometimes known as Churchill Beach, this once secluded beach is now home to the Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach resort, a spectacular 26-acre property teeming with lush foliage, natural wildlife and palm-tree dotted beaches.
Facilities such as sun loungers, umbrellas, showers and restrooms, beachfront bars and water sports activities are all available from the beachside resort.
Fortune (Churchill) Beach is located on the southwest coast of Grand Bahama Island in the general vicinity of Freeport.
What to do and see in Grand Bahama
Sunbathe on the gorgeous white sands of Xanadu Beach and Lucaya Beach, both flanked with a choice of resorts.
Enjoy water sports including parasailing, Hobie Cats, kayaking, banana boats, water skiing, jet skiing and windsurfing.
Choose from a selection of hotels and resorts to suit all budgets, mainly located along the Lucaya Beach area and in Freeport.
Grand Bahama is renowned for scuba diving and offers a choice of offshore reefs to dive, including the Wall, the Caves (site of Theo’s Wreck), Treasure Reef, Spit City, Ben Blue Hole, Silver Point Reef and the Rose Garden.
Several premier dive centres (such as Underwater Explorers Society – UNEXSO – one of the world’s most respected diving facilities) offer reef trips, shark, wreck and night dives as well open-water encounters with friendly Atlantic bottlenose dolphins at the Dolphin Experience in Sanctuary Bay.
For some of the best snorkelling, head to the coral gardens at Silver Point Reef, Gold Rock and Ben’s Cave at the Lucayan Caves at the Lucayan National Park, one of the world’s largest underwater cave systems.
Here you can experience a 9.5km-long, shallow, underground freshwater cave system with waters inhabited by freshwater marine species including shrimp, mosquito fish and freshwater eels.
The 16ha preserve also offers hiking and biking trails through the island’s five ecosystems – pine forests, rocky coppice, mangrove swamps, whiteland coppice and sand dunes. Look out for colourful orchids, hummingbirds and barn owls along the way.
Hook up a charter from one of the many operators and chase mahi-mahi, snapper, grouper, yellowtail, wahoo, barracuda and kingfish.
Tee-off at the Lucayan Country Club, which now boasts two 18-hole, par-72 golf courses designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. Tennis fans should head to the Ace Tennis Centre at the Westin & Sheraton at Our Lucaya Resorts, with four courts of different surfaces (including grass).
How to get to Grand Bahama
Grand Bahama is the northernmost island in The Bahamas, lying 103km (64mi) off Palm Beach, Florida. It is the fourth largest island in the Bahamas after Andros, Eleuthera and Great Abaco.
The island is roughly 1,400 sq km (530 sq mi) in area and approximately 153km (95mi) long and 24km (15mi) at its widest point.
The most convenient route to Grand Bahama is to fly into Grand Bahama International Airport (FPO), located about 5km (3mi) outside Freeport, the capital city.
The airport receives daily nonstop flights from Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Nassau.
Discovery Cruise Line runs a daily ferry service between Fort Lauderdale and Freeport, taking around five hours.
