Martinique

Beautiful beaches are surrounded by exotic jungles, and towering churches share the skyline with an enormous volcano. Tourists and inhabitants swarm the store-lined streets and restaurant-filled back lanes of Fort-de-France, while greenery dampens the sounds of bird tweets and hikers a few kilometers north. In a nutshell, Martinique. If you want to relax on the beach one day and then get your adrenaline pounding the next, this island has it all – and does it well.

There is, of course, a catch. Fine cuisine, luxurious resorts, and pristine sand are not inexpensive. Vacations in the area are famously pricey, particularly in the winter. Martinique's currency is the euro, as it is an overseas territory of France, therefore your US dollars will not go as far. Nonetheless, this island has a rich past, a French-tinged cosmopolitan culture, and a diversified scenery unrivaled in the Caribbean, so there's a strong possibility that your holiday budget will be exceeded.