Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands and the location of the territory’s capital, George Town. In relation to the other two Cayman Islands, it is approximately 75 miles southwest of Little Cayman and 90 miles southwest of Cayman Brac.
Grand Cayman encompasses 76% of the territory’s entire land mass. The island is approximately 22 miles long with its widest point being 8 miles wide. The elevation ranges from sea level at the beaches to 60 feet above sea level on the North Side’s Mastic Trail.
Because of its clubs, resorts, and hotels, Seven Mile Beach has the largest concentration of visitors and tourists on the island.
Watersports such as scuba diving and snorkeling are among the most popular activities[citation needed] on Grand Cayman as the island is known for its coral reefs and underwater sea walls along with a number of shipwrecks.
As well, Grand Cayman Island also has a number of natural attractions: the blow holes in the East End district, the Mastic Trail that runs north to south through the center of the island, Hell in the West Bay, and the acclaimed Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, to name a few.
Top activities for Grand Cayman:
- Swim with Sting Rays – Stingray City is Grand Cayman’s most popular attraction for snorkelers and non-swimmers. Enjoy this unique experience of touching and feeding a Stingray, together with snorkeling among magnificent coral reefs and colorful tropical fish. The Stingray City Sandbar is a fun place and is suitable for everyone. You may be surrounded by more than two dozen “tame” Atlantic Southern Stingray’s that enjoy the company of humans. The Stingray’s swim freely with humans in only three feet of water at the shallow Sandbar area.
- Cayman Turtle Farm – is a conservation facility and tourist attraction located in the West Bay district of the Cayman Islands. It is used for raising the endangered Green Sea Turtle. Established in 1968 by a group of American and British investors as “Mariculture Limited”, the farm was initially a facility used to raise the Green Sea Turtle for commercial purposes. By raising the turtle in a farming operation, the investors could raise turtle-meat for consumption without depleting the wild population of the species. Still in operation as a farm that breeds and raises turtles in order to sell product, the Cayman Turtle Farm has also become a research center and tourist attraction. Currently, the farm is a conservation project as well as the largest land-based attraction in the Cayman Islands. The turtle farm welcomes more than 500,000 visitors annually.
- Seven Mile Beach – is a long crescent of coral-sand beach on the western end of Grand Cayman island. Seven Mile Beach is known for its beauty, recently receiving the honor of “The Caribbean’s Best Beach” from Caribbean Travel and Life Magazine. It is public property (as are all beaches in the Cayman Islands) and one is able to walk the full length of the beach, regardless of where you are staying. The Seven Mile Beach is the most popular and most developed area of Grand Cayman. It is home to the majority of the island’s luxury resorts and hotels. Despite the name, a generous measurement puts the actual length at just a bit over 6.3 miles long. A realistic length for the uninterrupted sandy beach is about 6 miles.
- Hell – is a group of short, black, limestone formations located in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Located in West Bay, it is roughly the size of half a football field. Visitors are not permitted to walk on the limestone formations but viewing platforms are provided. There are numerous versions of how Hell received its name, but they are generally variations on “a ministration exclaimed, ‘This is what Hell must look like.'”It is also claimed that the name “Hell” is derived from the fact that if a pebble is thrown out into the formation, it echoes amongst the limestone peaks and valleys and sounds as if the pebble is falling all the way down to “Hell.”Regardless of how it first came to be called Hell, the name stuck and the area has become a tourist attraction, featuring a fire-engine red hell-themed post office from which you can send “postcards from hell”, and a gift shop with ‘Satan’ Ivan Farrington passing out souvenirs while greeting people with phrases like ‘How the hell are you?’ and ‘Where the hell are you from?’
- Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park – is a non-profit outdoor garden and wildlife facility located in the North Side District of Grand Cayman Island in the British West Indies. The park is owned jointly by the Cayman Islands Government and the National Trust for the Cayman Islands, a group dedicated to preserving natural environments and places of historic significance in the Cayman Islands. Opened in 1994 with only the Woodland Trail completed, the park now also contains the Floral Colour Garden, a Cayman Heritage Garden, a lake, an orchid boardwalk exhibit, and a Blue Iguana Habitat. Also inside the park is a gift shop and a visitor’s interpretive center, the starting point from which visitors can enter the Woodland Trail and other garden grounds.
Get out of the cold and call us for your sunshine adventure to the Cayman Islands!