TROPICAL SWIMMING

with piglets and other creatures!

That and then at the perfect winter getaway spots for us East Coast Siders.

Last year, everyone massively packed their bags to – and yes, this is dead serious – go swimming with piglets. Somewhere on an uninhabited tropical island with white sand and azure blue water. It was the ‘trending getaway’ of winter 2015, and it showed. Online, it was flooded with selfies of stunning blogger babes and Insta-it-girls with floating piglets in the sun. A-ma-zing.

Now winter is coming again, and that means for us New Yorkers the starting signal for the flight vacation. Everyone, yes really everyone must and will escape the horror winter months of Manhattan for at least a week. And preferably somewhere with palm trees, coconut cocktails, and probably something with creatures again this year. And I don't mean that eternal ‘swimming with dolphins’. Because may I just say that no one should ever do that again? Please watch the documentary The Cove and stay miles away from that rotten basin industry.

So, that said, back to the flight vacation. Although I have almost certainly booked our tickets to the pig beach, I still went on a little research and found more of those paradise-like spots. God oh god, this is going to be tricky. Because do we stick with the piglets or do we go for a round with the manatee?

The piglets

Of course, I start with the pig beach, located on an uninhabited island near the Bahamas. You can take a boat there for about 180 dollars to spend a day swimming with these grunting little ones. How they ended up there is a mystery. From a sunken pirate ship where only the randomly present piglets survived to the legend that sailors had stashed the pigs on the island long ago to come back and eat them later. Whatever the case; this beach is still a dream, right?

Vieques

This is an island near Puerto Rico that you can only reach by mini-jet or boat. Now the W Hotel there is already a paradise (check out the video here for some daydreaming)(http://www.wvieques.com/video/w-retreat–spa-vieques-island-3)), but more importantly, Vieques has a bizarrely beautiful bioluminescent bay. This is, without boring you with all sorts of biological jargon, the glowing of the sea at night upon touch. Just like in Life of Pi. That really exists! Among other places on Vieques.

Baking and barbecuing with pink ladies on a private island

I was here last year! On – again – a private island of the Renaissance hotel in Aruba, you find the Caribbean version of the Garden of Eden. And then in real life, with the highlight of paradise being the flamingos on the beach. The pink ladies flutter around you a bit, and that completes the fairy tale.

ROUND WITH MANATEE

This creature is related to the elephant and has an average weight of almost 600 kilos, making it extremely cuddly. And now you are not allowed to cuddle them or even touch them (apologies for the somewhat misleading title), but swimming with them in the wild is possible. And the only place where that can happen in the wild is in North America. Crystal River in Florida. If you find swimming a bit daunting, admiring them up close with a canoe is also an option.