Yearning to feel refreshing trade winds bathing your skin as your cares melt away on pink and white sand beaches? Add tranquil coral-ringed coves for boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, and exploring shipwrecks, and you are in Antigua. Forget pricy resort hotels and their expensive eateries. Opt instead for eating black pineapples and sipping island rum punch on the verandah of your money-saving vacation rental in Antigua or Barbuda.

Wake up to another beautiful island day. Reluctantly leave your money-saving vacation rental villa, home, cottage, condo, or apartment after eating tropical fruits in your fully-equipped kitchen. The big decision: where to golf? East of St. John’s, Antigua’s capital, is the coastal view-laden premier island course at Cedar Valley Golf Club. Near Saint Mary's and Jolly Harbour Marina, about 20 minutes from St. John’s, tee off onto flat greens at Jolly Harbour Golf Club. After golf, stroll the beaches around Half Moon Bay, Nonsuch Bay, and Long Bay.

Educate the whole family on island geology and history at the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda on Long Street in St. John’s. Visit the Anglican Cathedral, which contrary to popular belief is built on a fossilized coral reef, not a volcano. The kids will love Fort Barrington, with its dungeons and semi-circular gun emplacement guarding St. John's Harbour. Fort James and its cannons guard the opposite side of St. John's Harbour.

English Harbour is near Falmouth Harbour Marina’s mega-yacht docks, not far from Mamora Bay and Saint Philip’s. Take the family on a trip back in history at Nelson’s Dockyard, an old British Navy base restored to its Georgian brick and stone splendor. Stroll the peninsula paths towards Pigeon Point Beach. Stop at Fort Berkeley, where cannons guarded the strategic anchorage. Commanding views made Shirley Heights ideal for military edifices and gun emplacements. Sundays the top of Shirley Heights, the 490-foot high Lookout, rocks to steel drums and barbecue.

Island hop. Barbuda is 20 minutes by air, and 3 hours by boat from St. John’s. A flat coral island where slaves once worked the Codrington estate sugarcane plantations, Barbuda has one small village. Walk Coco Point and other long isolated stretches of beach punctuated by small clumps of dune vegetation. Explore ruins like the Codrington estate’s Highland House, perched on the island’s highest point, 124 feet above sea level. Bird-watch ‘til you drop at Barbuda's Frigate Bird Sanctuary, where 170 bird species buzz around Codrington Lagoon. Over 5,000 frigate birds go through their mating rituals from September to April. Experience it all with your money-saving Antigua or Barbuda vacation rental.