Anguilla. Eight minutes from St Martin by air, with the last leg arranged before you leave home.

Anguilla's runway is a useful length. It is not a long-haul length. A trip from Europe therefore arrives at St Martin, Antigua or San Juan, and the final piece is flown by a light aircraft or made by boat. Neither is difficult. Both are impossible to improvise at six in the evening with luggage and a family, which is why it is the part of the itinerary we settle first.

The air hop from St Martin takes about eight minutes and is flown by the regional operators who do it all day. The sea crossing takes twenty to twenty five minutes from Blowing Point to Marigot on the French side, with services roughly every half hour. There are also charter boats that run directly between Blowing Point and the Dutch side by the airport, which is what most private arrivals actually use, because it removes a road transfer across the island and a change of terminal.

See private jet charter, ultra long range jets, heavy jets, turboprops and how chartering works.

Anguilla is a low coral island about sixteen miles long with no mountains, no cruise port and no high-rise. What it has is a run of beaches that are genuinely among the best in the Caribbean, a handful of hotels and villa estates along the west and north coasts, and a food scene that is far better than an island this size has any right to support.

Shoal Bay East on the north coast is the famous one. Meads Bay, Barnes Bay and Rendezvous Bay in the west are where most of the hotels sit. Sandy Ground is the working harbour and the evening one. Sandy Island and Scilly Cay are small offshore stops reached by boat for lunch, which is exactly the kind of day out the island does best.

It is a British Overseas Territory, English-speaking, traffic drives on the left, and it is a short boat ride from St Barths and St Martin without feeling remotely like either. See St Barths and the Caribbean.

Anguilla sits in the middle of a tight group of islands, which makes it a natural base or a natural stop. St Martin is twenty minutes away, St Barths is a straightforward run by fast boat, and the wider Leeward chain is within a comfortable day's passage. For a yacht it is a good anchorage with quiet water on the leeward side and very little traffic by Caribbean standards.

For guests staying ashore, a boat for the day is the single best thing to arrange in advance: Sandy Island for lunch, Prickly Pear, or a run across to St Barths. We arrange charters, day boats and transfers through operators and agents we know, joined up to the flights so the timings agree. See yacht charter, day charter, motor yachts and the APA explained.

Our own cars and chauffeurs are in London and Manchester, and a trusted global network covers everywhere else. From home, the departure is the leg we control directly: an early car from the house to Luton, Farnborough, Stansted, Biggin Hill or Heathrow, luggage loaded properly for a long flight, and a chauffeur who knows the private terminal gate. See private jet transfers, airport transfers and group travel.

In the Caribbean, the connection, the cars and the boats are arranged through operators we know, with one person at Odyssey holding the itinerary and watching the inbound flight. If it moves, the hop, the boat and the hotel hear about it from us rather than from you.