Nevis: Blue sea, a great bar and a world of natural wonders

Nevis is being left behind in the race to attrack tourists. Its a great shame, says Simon O'Hagan

The offer of a free holiday somewhere wonderful might seem at best quaint when the recipients are members of the New York Fire Department who survived the horror of 11 September. But people can only do what they can do, and for the authorities of the tiny Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis, there could be no more heartfelt gesture than to invite the firemen to try to recover from their ordeal by discovering the charms of this particularly magical corner of the West Indies.

I spent a week on Nevis with my family at the beginning of the year, living out a dream of escape which, eight months on, is all the more vivid. Everyone has their own idea of where to run to. All I can say is that surely few places on earth fulfil the requirements as Nevis does. It's just a pity you have to fly there.

There is an enduring Bacardi-ad image of the Caribbean, in which gorgeous young things live it up to the sound of calypso. That does Nevis no favours. Dominated by – in fact, virtually comprising – an extinct volcano clad in tropical rain forest, the retreat-like plantations that dot its sloping terrain, and hidden-away beaches wholly lacking in commercial development, add up to a lost world of 1950s innocence and gentility.

One of the Leeward Islands, Nevis covers a mere 36 square miles and has only one purpose-built resort, a Four Seasons complex catering mostly for Americans. The rest of the island is so delightfully ramshackle that it came as a shock after bumping along pot-holed roads, dodging chickens as we went, to find ourselves on a stretch of immaculate tarmac that ran through the middle of the manicured fairways of the hotel golf course.

Plantation inns are the more traditional form of Nevis hotel. With the island's sugar trade having long since disappeared, the gracious homes and gardens that the owners created for themselves in colonial times have been adapted to a new purpose, and our plantation inn – the Hermitage – was as much an architectural and botanical treasure as a fabulously restful place to stay, comprising a main house built in the 18th century, and cottages in the grounds in similar timbered style. From our cottage, all polished wooden floors and antique rugs and furnishings, we watched green vervet monkeys darting about the grounds. A stroll across the lawn took us to a terraced restaurant, and drinks in a snug that should be high on anyone's list of Great Bars of the World.

To call the Hermitage merely a hotel is woefully to undersell the richness of its heritage, the beauty of its surrounds, and its capacity both to make you welcome and leave you alone to relax. All this was down to its American owners, the Lupinacci family, local grandees with a gift for hospitality that all hoteliers aspire to but few really possess, especially when it comes to children. The Hermitage was in many ways a tropical version of Woolley Grange, the Wiltshire manor house that has provided balm to stressed metropolitan types and their children for many years.

If pure rest was all you were in need of, then you could spend a contented week in Nevis without ever leaving the Hermitage. But there is a whole island to visit, and we had rented the necessary Jeep in which to do it. A complete circuit – like travelling round the rim of a hat – took about an hour and a half, and whether gazing up at the strikingly verdant Nevis Peak, all 3,232 feet of it, or out across the dazzling blue of the Caribbean Sea, natural wonder was everywhere. Then there was the landmark that is Nevis's main historical claim to fame – the church where Lord Nelson wed a local beauty, Fanny Nisbet. The marriage certificate is still there. You shouldn't miss the botanical gardens, or, if there is a meeting on, a day at the races. Anyone who thinks Cheltenham has the most spectacular setting of any racecourse in the world might want to revise their opinion once they have seen the back straight at Nevis, with a vista beyond of swaying palm trees and crashing surf.

We took the opportunity to experience Nevis nature with a trip on foot up the lower slopes of Nevis Peak and into the rainforest. Jim, our guide, kept us going with a combination of repartee and pure sugar beet, and showed us how to crack open a coconut. For children whose exposure to such realms had stopped at the Rainforest Café in London, it was unforgettable. But don't expect to see brightly coloured parrots everywhere. Apart from a frog lurking in an old water tank, we saw nothing bigger than a spider. The fronds of ancient trees hung undisturbed.

There is only one town on Nevis, Charlestown, where traffic dawdles along a main street of shuttered shops and houses, and people stroll in the shade buying mangoes, papayas and other produce from the back of parked vans. Jostling for supremacy of the road – more in a spirit of fun than aggression, it seemed – were the mini-buses that made up Nevis's public transport system. We enjoyed collecting the names emblazoned across their bonnets: Blueberry Boy, The Agent, Kelly's Eye, Problem Child.

Tourism to the Caribbean from Britain has been in decline. "We're just not flavour of the month," we were told by the owner of the seriously pukka Montpelier Plantation Inn, a slice of Home Counties affluence that had provided sanctuary to Diana, Princess of Wales, in one of her darker moments. The truth is that the old Caribbean England of royalty, Ian Fleming and Noel Coward is fading, while the hedonistic appeal of the region to younger holidaymakers has been usurped by Mediterranean destinations. For its part, Nevis is expensive, and a long way, but it would be sad if it were left any further behind than it already is.

The facts

Getting there

Simon O'Hagan stayed at the Hermitage Plantation Inn, Nevis (001 869 469 3477; email: nevherm@caribsurf.com). A week's half-board, between December and April, costs from $2,275 (£1,625) for a couple sharing. Return flights to Nevis, via Antigua and St Kitts, with British Airways cost £841.90.