The Ins & Outs of Barbados 2022

31 Island Adventures Danielle’s Favourite Batts Rock, St. Michael Definitely a west coast gal. Loves the calm, crystal-clear waters, preferably with a rum punch in hand. Steven’s Favourite The Crane, St Philip Nostalgia from childhood. Loves the ferocity of the waves and is happiest when body-boarding. Leo’s Favourite Little Bay, St Lucy Loves splashing in the calm little pools and finding sea anemone and sea snails. Charlie’s Favourite Can’t talk and tell us yet. Still loves eating sand. In December 2020, I moved to Barbados, with my Bajan husband Steven, and our two little boys, Leo and Charlie. Of course I had visited the island many times, but now this was going to be home, and it was time to get to know the island inside out – every inch and every stretch of sand. So Steven came up with an idea to show us his island – we decided to challenge ourselves to visiting 52 beaches in 52 weeks, starting in January 2021. Bajans were intrigued by our project: ‘Do we even have 52 beaches in Barbados?’ ... ‘You mean you’re going to go to the beach every weekend? What if it’s raining?’ ... and, ‘What do you mean you can’t come to Pebbles again til’ next year?’ But we were also met by a lot of enthusiasm, great suggestions for our list, and friends and family joining us at obscure, far-flung beaches they hadn’t been to in years. Now, we’re the kind of couple that love a spreadsheet. So we made a list, and slowly chipped away at it, keeping track of our target each week. Sometimes we fell behind, but sometimes we had a run of three beaches in a week. We were at the beach at 6am during lockdown (not hard when you have a baby waking you up at 5am). We hid under an umbrella in the sea in the pouring rain (our three year old Peruvian-born city boy was afraid of rain back then). We explored rock pools, caves, chased crabs, watched horses swimming, dug holes and built thousands of sandcastles (that were destroyed seconds later of course). We had countless picnics, leisurely Sunday lunches with friends, and quick after-work sunset swims. And we watched our city-born boys grow from weary of the sand and sea, to the beach-loving water babies we’d hoped they’d become. At the time of going to print, we were at beach number 49 / week 48. To view the complete list of 52 beaches and our memories from each one, head to insandoutsbarbados.com/travel-guides/52-beaches- barbados 52 Beaches in Fif ty-two Weeks By Danielle Miller Scan the code to view the complete list of 52 Beaches