Jamaica

The main gateway is Sangster International Airport (MBJ) in Montego Bay, the busiest with tourists thanks to its proximity to the resorts of the north and west coasts. The capital has Norman Manley International Airport (KIN), ideal if you're heading to Kingston or the southeast. Both receive direct flights from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, plus regional connections across the Caribbean. Airlines flying to Jamaica include American Airlines, JetBlue, Delta, United, Air Canada and British Airways, along with the regional Caribbean Airlines. For domestic hops between Montego Bay, Kingston, Negril and Ocho Rios there are charter services by small plane and helicopter, handy for saving hours on the road. To get around by land, route taxis (shared taxis) and minibuses connect towns and cities at budget prices, though without fixed schedules. There are also more formal intercity buses on the main routes. For greater comfort it's best to hire taxis with a fare agreed in advance (official ones carry a red "PP" license plate), private hotel transfers or ride-hailing apps, available mainly in Kingston and Montego Bay. Renting a car is possible, but remember that people drive on the left.

The history of Jamaica is that of a small, mountainous Caribbean island that nonetheless ended up weighing enormously on the culture of the world. Called Xaymaca —'land of wood and water'— by its first Taíno inhabitants, it was sighted by Christopher Columbus on May 5, 1494, colonized first by Spain as a poor and neglected possession, and seized by England in 1655 during Oliver Cromwell's 'Western Design'. For almost two centuries it was the sugar jewel of the British Empire, the richest colony in the Antilles, built on the slave labor of more than a million Africans landed by force and on an extreme violence that also engendered a resistance without equal.

That resistance took many forms: that of the Maroons who were never subdued and wrested treaties of autonomy from the Crown in 1739-1740; that of Tacky and the Coromantee in 1760; and that of rebels like Sam Sharpe, whose Baptist War of 1831 precipitated abolition, and Paul Bogle, whose Morant Bay uprising in 1865 changed the political course of the island. From the plantation, rebellion and freedom, a powerful identity was born. Jamaica fully emancipated its slaves on August 1, 1838, gained independence from the United Kingdom on August 6, 1962, and gave the planet reggae, Rastafari, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley and Usain Bolt.