One of my favorite things about planning a trip to St. Barts is deciding how to get there. While many destinations have us worrying about long lines at customs, St. Barts always invites us to imagine hopping a sea plane, catching a ride on a luxury yacht, or boarding the little puddle jumper that nose dives into the tiny island, coming to an abrupt stop just a few feet shy of the ocean.  Although there is nothing quite as romantic as sailing into St. Barts, I generally opt for the plane because it provides the fastest way to connect from St. Maarten – only about ten or fifteen minutes in the air.  I admit, however, to always having a few ginger candies in my purse for the trip.  On my most recent visit to the island this January, I was the only passenger on the little Win-Air plane. Once I stopped looking around for other people, I relaxed and looked at the view instead.  A million shades of blue and green; it was perfect.  If you live in the States, you can’t get to the island directly, at least not on a commercial airline.  But in the case of St. Barts, that fact only adds to its cache and mystique.
A minute or two after landing, throwing off the bowline, or splashing down in your seaplane; you realize that even if you could change things, you wouldn’t.  There is something special about St. Barts; there always has been.  Getting there shouldn’t be prosaic and mundane.  St. Barts is like no other island in the world, and it knows it.  The romantic in me would be disappointed if St. Barts didn’t play just a little bit hard to get.