Kingston – World Travel

Spanish Town best Jamaica travel vacation destination videos

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:12:45 +0000

Spanish Town, Jamaica’s capital for more than 300 years, was once considered to boast exemplary town planning. Today, for visitors traveling from Kingston through the city’s blighted outlying ghettoes, it’s somewhat of a stretch to envisage the former capital’s erstwhile grandeur. However, this changes the moment one arrives at the evocative historic center, where you’ll find the Caribbean’s most extensive assortment of Georgian architecture and its greatest cathedral (albeit in a sad state of repair). Few other places in Jamaica bring to life the historic sweep of centuries like Spanish Town.

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The island’s second-largest urban center and the capital of St Catherine parish, Spanish Town is frequently the locus of Jamaica’s most wrenching urban strife. Few tourists spend the night, and those who do must contend with a paucity of safe lodging and services. By all means visit, but consider a day trip from Kingston.

Port Royal best Jamaica travel vacation destination videos

WorldTravelDB.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:12:45 +0000

Once the pirate capital of the Caribbean – and for more than 200 years the hub of British naval power in the West Indies – Port Royal today is a dilapidated, ramshackle place of tropical lassitude, replete with important historical buildings collapsing to dust. Today’s funky fishing hamlet gives little hint of the town’s former flamboyant glory.

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The Port Royal Development Projecthas long touted the tourism potential of Port Royal as a possible marine archaeological attraction, with much lip service given to plans for a 32-hectare theme park, cruise-ship pier, entertainment center and arcade, Jamaica music museum, and heritage reenactments including townsfolk in period costumes. However, the massive project shows no signs of getting off the ground.

Kingston best Jamaica travel vacation destination videos

WorldTravelDB.com — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:12:45 +0000

Its reputation preceding it like a police siren, Kingston deters most visitors. The crime, traffic, crowds and shantytowns of the capital are simply too volatile to mix into the average vacationer’s dream Jamaican cocktail. Few have the time (or inclination) to explore the city long enough to disprove the image.

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To be sure, Kingston can be squalid, intimidating and, in places, extremely dangerous, but with some street smarts and an open mind, any visitor will be rewarded with a firm acquaintance of a city as unbridled and unique to the island as it is to the Caribbean and indeed the world. Ground zero for the reggae for which the island made its mark, the capital is about as far from the brochures for pampered resort life as it gets.