St Lucia has just been crowned the number one island to visit in Expedia’s 2026 Island Hot List — and named the best island for romance, too.
It’s easy to see why. In place of the crowds of better-known Caribbean bolt-holes, this is an island of pure drama: emerald rainforest, secluded beaches, and those two great volcanic spires, the Pitons, rising sheer from the sea.
For couples, one address distils all of it. Nick Troubetzkoy’s Jade Mountain, an independently owned luxury resort on the island’s iconic west coast, offers an immersive open-air experience in which each Sanctuary frames the Pitons like a living work of art. Rising above a 600-acre beachfront estate, the resort dissolves the line between design and nature — the fourth wall of every room simply left open to the view.
There are just 24 open-air Infinity Pool Sanctuaries and five Sky Jacuzzi Suites, each individually crafted and gazing out over the UNESCO-listed Pitons. Days here can be as full or as languid as you please: world-class dining across five restaurants — 40% of it grown on the resort’s own organic farm — alongside holistic spa rituals, coral-reef restoration, jungle biking, and chocolate-making in the on-site chocolate laboratory.
Adults-only and gloriously secluded, Jade Mountain gives every couple a private haven suspended between rainforest and sea. Set against one of the Caribbean’s most breathtaking backdrops, it is less a hotel than a once-in-a-lifetime romantic escape — a place where every moment feels quietly, impossibly dreamlike.
