Dreaming of Your Next Caribbean Escape? This Private Island Belize Resort Is Waiting
Ray Caye is an eco-friendly, self-sustaining private island resort worthy of all your travel daydreams right now.
The idea of a private-island resort sounds awesome, on paper. But what will you do for activities? What is there to eat? Will you get…resort claustrophobia?!
Trust me, all these questions crossed my mind as I sailed 18 miles off the coastal village of Placencia, Belize, to the Caribbean’s newest private-island resort, Ray Caye. What I discovered didn’t necessarily make me a convert to the private-island concept in general, but it definitely made me want to go back to Ray Caye. Particularly, to one of the 20-room properties next to the Belize Barrier Reef and surrounded by the icy-blue Caribbean.
The kidney-shaped, seven-acre island, is a self-sustaining enterprise that, in effect, has its own electric district, distributing power throughout the island from a central energy bank powered by more than 600 solar panels. A mix of cistern-collected rainwater and a desalinization plant provide eminently drinkable, UV-filtered water straight from the tap. Most of the produce served on the island is raised in the organic garden. Vast plantings of mangrove, salt-resistant grass and shrubs, seagrape trees, old-growth royal palms, travelers palms, and coconut palms have made the island not just green, but increasingly resistant to natural erosion.