Caribbean beach, sunshine and rum expert James Henderson has launched an OnlineBeachBar.com  during Covid-19 to give us inspiration for post lockdown travel and relaxation. It’s full of stories of travelling in the islands and useful advice about how to have the best time – where to eat out, the best sailing trips and of course the beach bars with the finest sunset view… You can ask questions through the facebook group or instagram page

Henderson is the perfect person to show us around his favourite haunt, the 100 islands of the Caribbean archipelago (or 3000 if you count the tiny cays and sandbars in the Bahamas…), with 30 sovereign island nations and territories. He has travelled to the region around 70 times in the last 33 years, usually visiting  two or three islands at a time, writing articles for the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Elle magazine and plenty of others, having started in 1990 with The Cadogan Guide to the Caribbean and the Bahamas.

Not content with lying in a hammock, this compulsive traveller is also writing up a journey he made in the trail of the young T. E. Lawrence (later of Arabia), who was a big cyclist when he was young. “I did a thousand mile cycle ride in 2019, tracking his route in northern France and referring to his letters sent home,” says Henderson, “It shows his formative years, how he became the man he became and signs of his endurance.” 

In 1890, T. E. Lawrence lived in Dinard, Brittany for three years and returned when he was 16 to stay with old neighbours. Henderson followed his subsequent travels through Normandy and the Loire, taking modern day images of places T. E. Lawrence had photographed all those years ago. ALifeofAdventure.net

Back to the present day and as the Caribbean opens up for travel, Henderson will be describing how to get there and which islands are open for business.