Harbour Island

Harbour Island is about five kilometres long and holds Dunmore Town, one of the oldest settlements in the Bahamas, laid out in the eighteenth century and lined with clapboard houses painted in pastels behind white picket fences, with bougainvillea over the walls. Nobody drives cars; golf carts do everything. The Atlantic side has Pink Sands Beach running most of the island's length, its sand carrying a distinct pink tint from the crushed shells of a red-shelled foraminiferan mixed through the white coral sand. The island has been fashionable since the 1990s and the prices reflect it, but the town itself has stayed a working Bahamian settlement.

What you actually see

• Pink Sands Beach - five kilometres along the Atlantic side.
• Dunmore Town - eighteenth-century clapboard streets and picket fences.
• Golf cart transport - the island's only real vehicle.
• The harbour front - fishing boats and the ferry dock.

When to go

December to May is the dry high season, when the island is busiest and most expensive. Summer is quieter, hotter and cheaper, with hurricane risk from June. Ferries from North Eleuthera run through the day and stop in the evening.

Honest expectations

It is expensive: among the priciest places in the Bahamas for food and accommodation, with a fashionable clientele that has pushed prices well beyond what the facilities warrant. The pink tint is real but subtle and strongest in certain light, so photographs oversell it. Golf carts must be booked ahead in season. The ferry stops early in the evening.

Nearby

Spanish Wells is a short boat ride; Eleuthera is across the channel.