The Spice Isle — nutmeg, chocolate, Grand Anse, and an underwater sculpture park
Grenada produces one-quarter of the world's nutmeg — the spice scents the air from the moment you land. Grand Anse is genuinely one of the Caribbean's best beaches: two miles of white sand, calm water, and no jet-skis. But Grenada's surprise is underwater: the world's first underwater sculpture park sits in Molinière Bay, where dozens of cast-iron figures have been colonised by coral and turned into artificial reef. The island is small enough to drive around in a day and large enough to disappear into cocoa estates and waterfall hikes for a week.
Grenada was the site of the 1983 US military intervention (Operation Urgent Fury), triggered by a Marxist coup and the presence of a Cuban-built airstrip — a defining Cold War episode in the Caribbean. Before that, the island was shaped by the plantation economy: cocoa, sugar, and nutmeg grown with enslaved African labour from the 17th century onwards. The Grenadian chocolate industry has experienced a 21st-century renaissance, with single-estate bars from Grenada Chocolate Company winning international awards and establishing a direct-trade model that transformed local cocoa farming.