the best beaches in long island, Bahamas not on a map!
1| Atlantic side beach
As soon as we landed, we were greeted with our rental vehicle and headed straight for adventure. By adventure, I mean we decided to to see if our sketchy research was any good… We went to check out Alex’s pins on Google Maps Satellite view.
No photoshop here — Not a single person as far as the eye could see
Turns out Google didn’t lie, and our first pin was a success
2 | The secret cove
After seeing the first beach we honestly kept our expectations low — we didn’t think it could get better. Let me tell you, we were wrong!
Orginally, we planned to stop here for about an hour, but we weren’t prepared for this beach. The striking limestone cliffs create a fitting frame to this perfect beach. We even had a couple of turtle sightings while we spent the rest of the day here. We then headed up to our AirBnB in Cape Santa Maria (probably the best beach in all the Bahamas)
3 | the beach with a name, just no people
After spending time in the North of the Island at Cape Santa Maria . We then stayed further south near the capital city: Clarence Town. About 5 minutes north of Clarence Town is a hidden beach known as Bonniecord Beach and it actually shows up on Google Maps if you type it in! Below is the exact location for reference. As you show up it looks like another Atlantic side beach that’s nothing special, but you’re not there yet the road takes you right of the actual beach. You walk to the left when you get there and as you get to a little sand hill. You go over it and you’ll see a picturesque bay that looks like it had to be man-made! If you catch this one at low tide it honestly doesn’t get much better honestly.
4 | a double bay + tiny island!!
It took us a while to actually find a path that could take us all the way through…some of them cross right into someone’s property or overgrown bushes make it impossible to get by. Once we finally found one, it was a very rough path through a narrow path but you end up right on the shore! We kept walking and wow…this little island felt close enough to swim to! We unfortunately went during high tide so it would have been a lot more difficult, but at low tide we are sure you can get to this island pretty easily.
We stumbled upon 2 super cute properties that matched the baby blues of the water and stumbled upon what looked like a conch cemetery (lol). The most gorgeously intact conch of ALL sizes, we even took home those 3 pictured below to display in our home. (FYI: we’ve heard the superstitions of taking sea items home so we keep them outside with our plants!)
5 | COLUMBUS MONUMENT
Okay this one is no secret but it’s worth a mention! We are not ones to visit many monuments or ruins… but the monument isn’t the point of visiting this place. The dramatic cliff side views is what brought us here, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!!
A little history about Long Island: it is said to be the 3rd island discovered by Columbus in 1492. He described it as the most beautiful island in the entire Bahamas!
The monument was recently redone in December 2020, so everything is pristine and new. There are paved stairs that lead you up the white cliffs and a lookout that give you epic panoramic views of the island. We spent much longer here than we anticipated, it is gorgeous! It is also just cool to imagine that this is what Christopher Columbus first saw when he was sailing this way. This monument should show up on Google Maps, like I mentioned, they redid this so the road that leads you there is very nicely paved. We drove here but we saw a couple of people walking there and even still we mostly had the place to ourselves.
