Oracabessa, Jamaica

Lit in the afternoons by an apricot light that must have inspired its Spanish name Orocabeza, or "Golden Head", ORACABESSA, some sixteen miles east of Ocho Rios, is a friendly one-street town with a covered produce market (main days Thurs & Fri) and a few shops and bars. A centre for the export of bananas until the early 1900s, Oracabessa became something of a ghost town when the wharves around the small natural harbour closed in 1969, taking with them the rum bars, gambling houses and most of the workers. The town snoozed quietly until the mid-1990s when the Island Outpost corporation (owned by Chris Blackwell, the former boss of Island Records and the producer of Bob Marley's most well-known albums) bought 100 acres of prime coastal land and opened up the village's main draw, the James Bond Beach Club (Tues– Sun 9am–6pm; US$5), signposted just off Main Street along Old Wharf Road. Jamaica's most stylish beach, the pretty but tiny strip of white sand offers brightly painted changing rooms, a watersports centre, and a bar/restaurant with a good selection of wines and meals such as curry or garlic shrimp, jerk chicken and burgers. The expansive lawns are a regular venue for large-scale concerts.

East of the turn-off for James Bond Beach, Oracabessa merges into the residential community of Race Course. This is the site of Goldeneye (Tel:876/975-3354, Web: www.islandoutpost.com ; Price: US$351 and above) the unassuming white-walled bungalow in which Ian Fleming wrote almost all of the James Bond novels. Now an exclusive hotel with a selection of gorgeous villas that include the former home of Ian Fleming himself, it's off-limits to all but the very well-heeled.