what to do when you have 3-5 days in jamaica

  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.
  • Jamaica travel guide, activity recommendations, and curated itinerary from What to When.

STAY: GoldenEye (I’d recommend 3-5 days)

10/10 would recommend — and I can’t WAIT to go back! It’s beautiful with cool vibes, very low key and laid back but still a 5-star, luxe experience. Perfect hotel if you want to detach, unwind, relax and get some quality R&R.

We stayed at the hotel the entire time and didn’t feel stir crazy at all. They have different restaurants open each night (and different beaches and pools) so it doesn’t feel repetitive and it is so nice to not have to plan anything or make any reservations. You just go with the flow.

Nothing ever feels crowded (there’s a lot of property and not that many rooms) so you don’t feel like you are at a mega resort. And there’s a fun, social vibe to it.

Our typical day:

  • workout at the gym which was amazing (just an open room so you can look at the ocean and feel the breeze)

  • breakfast at the bizot bar (the main restaurant by the pool that is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner)

  • tennis and/or pickleball

  • button beach to swim and hang. There’s a bar on the beach that has amazing drinks and fresh coconut water - I thought button beach had the best vibes of all the different areas you could go to.

  • paddle board in the lagoon and see the sea turtles.

  • lunch at button beach - best food at the hotel. the shrimp curry is unbelievable.

  • swim + sit on the beach with drinks, maybe paddle board again or snorkel at snorkel cave.

  • walk to the other side and hang at the other beach / pools.

  • drinks at shabeen for sunset.

  • dinner wherever dinner was being held that night (they switch it up) - gazebo was the best dinner food.

Overall highly recommend for a relaxing, fun, lowkey vacation especially when you don’t want to do a lot of planning. Would also be fun with a group because you can rent a house. Personally, if it is just two people I think the beach huts are perfect because they are very reasonably priced and you don’t spend much time in your room anyways. If you want to spend more $$, I’d recommend the lagoon cottages over the beach cottages. The color of the lagoon is truly breathtaking.