Published On: 22/05/20237.5 min read

Wild Lotus Glamping is a place where storytellers feel welcome. Glamping in our Caribbean campsite puts you close to campfires, perfect for late night tales and story swapping. While considering the stories we commonly hear from our guests, we realized that after five years providing luxury Caribbean glamping, our resort had changed our lives as much as it had impacted our guests’.

Here is a story of how glamping in the Caribbean will change your life. If you’re an adventurer, a wellness seeker, or eco conscious, it’s a tale you will find yourself in. But it’s also our story so expect to find tidbits about the story behind Wild Lotus Glamping and its founders.

Our guiding passion was creating a space where people can stand still in a racing world

1. Glamping In The Caribbean Helps You Slow Down

Early mornings in frigid weather, constant train delays, and the feeling that the hamster wheel will never stop is a tale visitors to the Caribbean know well. Whether they live in a big U.S. city or one in the UK, escape is the buzzword in their hearts. Maybe this is your story too. The stresses of everyday life have piled up and you’re looking for the perfect way to relieve it.

When we created Wild Lotus Glamping, our guiding passion was creating a space where people can stand still in a racing world and connect deeply with nature and each other.

The Caribbean was ideal for that. From the minute you step off the airplane you’ll notice that the Caribbean operates with a different understanding of time. Locals have mastered the art of slow living.

This deliciously slow attitude extends to everything else. Glamping in the Caribbean means genuinely kind locals, waves that move slowly under the golden sun, and an almost eerie stillness come night time when crickets and the dance of the ocean is the only sound you’ll hear. When we began looking for a place for glamping grounds Antigua had all of this and more. We fell in love with the blue skies and turquoise seas and the golden sand and palm trees. But more than that, for the first time, despite the cultural differences, here was a place we felt we could belong.

Now that we’ve managed to make Antigua home, we can truly say, life has never been slower. Our guests agree and we can see the change in their faces every time they leave. Try a Caribbean glamping trip for yourself and feel time slow down!

2. When You Glamp In The Caribbean You Provide Sustainable Employment For Locals

If social responsibility and sustainable travel are more than buzzwords to you, you can feel good about choosing glamping over a traditional stay for your next Caribbean vacation. On average, every two years somewhere in the Caribbean is affected by a hurricane. Due to climate change, these hurricanes are becoming more intense. When hurricanes strike hard in the Caribbean, many livelihoods are destroyed overnight.

Traditional hotels have no ready solution for these impacts. But the right glamping ground is perfectly positioned to be stewards of both the environment and the local people depending on it for their livelihoods. Stay in one and you can sleep well knowing that your tourism dollars are going to a business determined to keep providing employment and protecting the environment.

At Wild Lotus Glamping we recognized early that part of our ethos had to be sustainability and preservation. At the very beginning of our story we asked ourselves how tourism infrastructures could be put up for the season and taken down at the end while protecting the environment and the tourism assets that locals depend on for their jobs.

We’re happy to report that we are able to completely remove our tents at the end of the season so that we can return every year regardless of how destructive the previous hurricane season was. And we plan to keep on contributing to Antigua for years to come. If these values are important to you, consider booking a stay with us or with another eco conscious glamping site in the Caribbean.

3. A Caribbean Glamping Trip Is Perfect For Mental Wellness

One distinct way glamping in the Caribbean changes your life is the way it has of editing away the mental burdens you carry with you on your vacation. Nature itself is healing in numerous ways but the ocean air and access to higher quality oxygen are particularly transformative for stressed out minds.

The Caribbean has no shortages of beaches so if you happen to make it the destination for your glamping holiday you can be certain you’ll leave changed. The charged air will improve mood and health. And being in nature will leave you more empathetic and happier (we covered these and other benefits of glamping here)

4. Glamping Fulfils You Sense of Responsibility For the Environment

You take steps to minimize your effects on the environment every day. You can take it a step further and fulfill your sense of responsibility for our environment by going glamping. But not anywhere. Some glamping grounds put up permanent structures like sewers and unmoveable cottages that leave lasting impacts on the environment.

Our Caribbean glamping sites take many steps to minimize our footprint. Nothing we erect is permanent so the fragile ecology suffers little impact from our presence. This doesn't mean we sacrifice on creature comforts. While the tents aren't permanent inside feels like a permanent home. Real beds, comfortable seating, safes, and twinkling fairy lights powered by the solar provide comfort while being easy to move at season’s end.

Everything is powered by solar so when you take a hot shower in our private outdoor showers you can feel good knowing there's no damage being done to the environment. Other steps include innovative water recycling practices and attentive care to the beach we call home. If you’re looking to go home changed because you know your vacation did no harm to the environment, glamping in the Caribbean is for you.

5. Caribbean Glamping Exposes You To A Different Kind Of Luxury

Luxury means many things to many people. There’s the flashy kind with overstated symbols and in your face extravagance. Then there’s the kind that whispers in a voice you have to get still to hear.

If you’re ready for a change in perspective or prefer the whisper to the shout, glamping in the Caribbean is for you. Wild Lotus’ particular brand of luxury prefers the massage of thousands of grains of sand on bare feet to the plushness of furry hotel slippers. And while relaxing in a poolside cabana certainly has its charm, we prefer waking up so close to the ocean we can smell the salt with each dance of the waves.

If this sounds like the kind of luxury you could enjoy, other opportunities for total immersion include private outdoor showers where banana trees and frangipani flowers embrace you as you wash your worries away and forest bathing in the tradition of Shinrin Yoku. It’s a slow kind of luxury for sure, but your perspective on luxury will never be the same.

6. Glamping In The Caribbean Can Heal Your Romantic Relationship

The Caribbean is a lovers’ paradise. Orange sunsets that turn purple every once in a while, uber-romantic ocean views, and intoxicating music that lovers like to dance to make the islands the destination of choice for destination weddings and couples-only retreats.

Glamping brings you closer to the most romantic experiences the islands have to offer. We can’t speak for every glamping ground but in the quiet of the night when the beach is secluded, our guests seem to fall in love all over again as they dance to the waves they cannot see in the dark of night.

Mornings are even better. Waking up to the sound of our endemic bird friends may seem like a fairytale. Until you get here!

You can plan your romantic escape now.

7. Caribbean Glamping Elevates Your Instagram Account

It's a vanity metric for sure, but we thought we would end on a fun note.

If you’re looking to elevate your personal brand on social media, or just looking for more likes, glamping in the Caribbean is a sure way to become unforgettable. With an ocean every shade of blue on the spectrum, the softest, whitest sands in the world, and luxury tents so close to the sea your camera may pick up the minutest stream of seaspray, a Caribbean paradise is where you should head for those instagrammable shots.

If you choose our accommodations, our luxury lotus tents come with solid oak furniture, brass beds, private solar heated showers set among banana trees, frangipani and hibiscus flowers, and beachside bonfires that make for a comfortable stay as much as for perfect shots. Visit our reservations page and put yourself in the frame.

Glamping and its potential to promote responsible tourism in the Caribbean
The Wild Lotus Story: How We Became The Caribbean’s First Beach Glamping Resort