Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico: Culebra and Vieques

A former US Navy bombing range turned into one of the world's finest beaches, then a bay that glows every night with plankton

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico: Culebra and Vieques

A journey to the small islands off Puerto Rico, far from San Juan: Culebra, whose Flamenco Beach, a former American military training ground converted into a nature reserve in 1975, regularly ranks among the world's most beautiful beaches according to the international press, then Vieques, a neighbouring island whose Mosquito Bay shelters one of the densest concentrations of bioluminescent plankton on the planet, a phenomenon that lights up the water at the slightest movement.

When

Dec to April

Price

From 2 400€ excl. flights

(based on 2 people sharing)

How long

5 nights

Ideal length

Culebra and Flamenco Beach

Days 1-2

The first chapter unfolds on Culebra, a small island that served as a US Navy gunnery training range from 1901 to 1975, a military history that paradoxically preserved its coastline from any intensive tourist development after the base closed. Flamenco Beach, now a protected nature reserve, still holds the rusting hulks of tanks once used as training targets, unusual relics amid immaculate white sand regularly ranked among the most beautiful in the world.

Day 1

Flamenco Beach and its rusting tanks

A day at Flamenco Beach, between swimming in shallow turquoise waters and discovering the abandoned tank hulks left since the military base closed.

Day 2

Snorkelling on the Culebra reefs

A boat trip to the preserved coral reefs around Culebra, snorkelling among sea turtles and tropical fish in a marine reserve protected since the 1970s.

1 / 3

Vieques and the Bioluminescent Bay

Days 1-2

A boat crossing to Vieques, where Mosquito Bay shelters one of the densest concentrations of bioluminescent dinoflagellates in the world, marine micro-organisms that emit a blue glow at the slightest movement of the water. This bioluminescence, a rare and fragile natural phenomenon threatened by light pollution, remains protected in Vieques by the near-total absence of artificial lighting along the bay's shores, a paradoxical legacy of its past as a military zone closed to the public until 2003.

Day 1

The wild beaches of the former military zone

An excursion to the wild beaches of Vieques's former military zone, closed to the public until 2003 and since converted into a nature refuge, now among the most preserved in the Caribbean.

Day 2

A night kayak in the bioluminescent bay

A night kayak outing on Mosquito Bay, where every paddle stroke makes the water shimmer with a blue light generated by millions of bioluminescent dinoflagellates.