New Providence Travel Video Guide

New Providence Travel Itinerary

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NEW PROVIDENCE and PARADISE ISLAND are the undeniable heart of the Bahamian archipelago. Despite its tiny size - 21 miles long and 7 miles wide - New Providence has more than two-thirds of the country's population and is home to the capital Nassau , a thriving city of around 100,000 residents. Initially gaining renown for its sheltered harbour and strategic location on the shipping route from the New World to Spain, the island has during its nearly 230-year history been a refuge for pirates and privateers, site of illicit smuggling, haven for fishermen, and formidable centre of tourism, with nearly two million visitors now arriving annually.

Stretching east to west, New Providence offers a wealth of lovely, uncrowded beaches , while on its northeastern shore Nassau runs six blocks deep and features the shopping arcade Bay Street , located along Prince George Wharf . A lengthy toll bridge east of downtown Nassau connects to Paradise Island , a glitzy tourist enclave that includes the mega-resort Atlantis , as well as many other hotels, shops, restaurants and spas. The island's main highlight is Cabbage Beach , covering most of the north coast and featuring deep blue water and trade winds that cool even the hottest of afternoons.

Although much of eastern New Providence has been covered by urban sprawl, the areas west of Nassau include stunning stretches of beach, though the main draw of Cable Beach is increasingly peppered by exclusive resorts, private estates, condominiums and time-shares. More worthwhile, the western shores , twelve miles of sand from Cable Beach to the western point , are the most dazzling parts of the island, with isolated Love Beach near Compass Point a particularly appealing spot.

Beyond the western point is

exclusive Lyford Cay , where celebrities like Sean Connery live in hermetically sealed luxury. New Providence's south shore has few notable beaches, and even fewer hotels, though diving and snorkelling draw many enthusiasts to the shore's outer reef and reef walls.

Although the central interior of New Providence is marshy scrub, several local eco-tourism operators offer kayaking on Lake Killarney and combination biking-kayaking tours as well.

Your Tips For New Providence

• Eleuthera Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Derived from an ancient Greek word for "freedom", the name ELEUTHERA was given to the island by a small band of European settlers who landed on its beaches in 1648, fleeing religious persecution in Bermuda. - Bahamas
  

• Cat Island and San Salvador Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  A world away from the up-tempo lifestyle and commercialism of a place like Nassau, CAT ISLAND and SAN SALVADOR offer an isolated example of Bahamian life before the advent of modern tourism. - Bahamas
  

• Long Island Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Virtually untouched by tourism, the 3200 residents of LONG ISLAND live in a dozen or so small fishing settlements along a seventy-mile strip, a narrow sliver of land rarely more than two miles wide, separating Grand Bahama Bank from the Atlantic Ocean. - Bahamas
  

• Exumas Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Encompassing more than 365 islands, cays and rock outcroppings, THE EXUMAS stretch over one hundred miles along the eastern edge of the Great Bahama Bank. - Bahamas
  

• Grand Bahama Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Fifty-five miles east of Miami, GRAND BAHAMA looks from the air to be a flat, dry slab of bleached limestone bristling with tall, thin pine trees and edged by a ribbon of powdery white sand and multihued bands of blue-green water. - Bahamas
  

• Alice Town Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Just fifty miles east of Miami, Florida, is the world-famous fishing destination Alice Town on North Bimini. - Bahamas
  

• Abacos and Loyalist Cays Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  The northernmost of the Bahamian islands, THE ABACOS are sometimes called the "isles of the old-time Loyalists" because of their association with Tory expatriates fleeing the American Revolution. - Bahamas
  

• New Providence Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  NEW PROVIDENCE and PARADISE ISLAND are the undeniable heart of the Bahamian archipelago. - Bahamas
  

• Paradise Island Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Three hundred yards across the Paradise Island Bridge from Nassau's harbour, PARADISE ISLAND consists of 686 acres of hard-pack coral and wind-blown limestone oolite sand, and until the mid-1960s was Nassau's boat-building centre and supported a population of wild hogs and domesticated pigs. - Bahamas
  

• Andros Bahamas Travel Videos
  Bahamas Travel Itinerary
  Bahamians call ANDROS their "Big Back Yard", an appropriate description considering the thick bush that dominates the island, which in the north consists mainly of tropical and deciduous trees like Andros pine and lignum vitae - the latter virtually the national tree of the Bahamas - and in the south, a mix of mangroves, mud flats and tidal swamps. - Bahamas