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A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean

Review

A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean

A couple travels
to Anguilla. Once. Twice. Three times. After many happy, enjoyable
trips, they decide to check out the possibility of running a
beach-side restaurant in their favorite part of the world. Moving
to Anguilla is the easy part --- setting up shop and learning the
ways of the island natives is quite another. In the tradition of
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN and Peter Mayles's stories, A TRIP TO THE
BEACH is a fun and enviable story about one couple's life in
paradise.

The book is nicely written with a sincerely conversational tone
that makes you believe you're catching up with old friends. The
travails of starting a business are familiar to anyone who has ever
either done the same or read about the process, but the gentile
nature of the island, the generosity and friendliness of the
people, and the down-to-earth character of the couple makes the
story truly engaging. Add to that the voyeuristic factor of the
reader living vicariously through these folks who brave a path to a
paradisiacal world --- where, they learn, not everything is paved
with gold --- and you have a wonderfully fun and funny book.

A book that tells the real story behind my greatest fantasy (which
is probably a lot of people's fantasy), A TRIP TO THE BEACH is not
always a day at the beach, but it's really, really close. Great
fun.

Reviewed by Jana Siciliano on January 23, 2011

A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean
by Melinda Blanchard

  • Publication Date: October 10, 2000
  • Genres: Autobiography, Nonfiction
  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Clarkson Potter
  • ISBN-10: 0609606948
  • ISBN-13: 9780609606940