Seaplane from Miami to Freeport Bahamas

The harbour is the first thing to understand about Freeport, because it is the busiest cruise port in the country and it sets the rhythm of the town. On a day with ships alongside, a few thousand people come ashore at once and go to the same four or five places. That is the argument for arriving under your own arrangements rather than on somebody else's timetable. A chartered aircraft leaves when you say, so the morning in the marketplace happens before the ships empty out and the beach in the afternoon is the quiet one rather than the near one. It also decides where a boat meets you. If a yacht is part of the day, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier, which is a yacht transfer and a dock pickup covers the other direction.

One of the longest established stables in the Bahamas is at Freeport and it has some of the best horse trails in the country. Rides run about ninety minutes to two hours with a maximum of six guests to a group, so it stays a small thing rather than a coach party. A guide takes the group across the island and the ride finishes on the beach. Part of it wades through knee high coastal water, so shorts and shoes that can get wet are the standing advice. It is the one thing on the island that fills a half day on its own and it is worth naming when you send the date, because the groups are small and they go early.

Freeport was set up as a free trade zone and no sales tax is collected in the area. For a guest that is a straightforward saving on anything bought in the town and it is the reason shopping is on more Freeport itineraries than it is anywhere else in the northern Bahamas. The bazaar is a run of shops and restaurants built around goods from a spread of countries and the straw market beside it is the local half: plaited work, wood and the usual island craft. Port Lucaya is about a ten minute drive from that end of town, so both fit into one afternoon without a plan. Bags bought ashore come home in the same payload as everything else, so the baggage guidance is worth a look before a serious shopping day. Anything that needs arranging rather than buying goes to custom requests.

Taino Beach is the one with restaurants on it, which makes it the answer for a party that wants the water and lunch in the same place rather than a drive between the two. The fish fry is a short walk along the sand from there and it is where the local seafood is eaten rather than served. Conch, snapper and whatever came in that morning, cooked in a row of small kitchens. Because the amenities are already on the beach, this is also the easy one with children along. Guests who want a table laid rather than a queue book a fly and dine day and catering on board covers the flight itself.

The Rand Nature Centre sits in the heart of downtown Freeport and it is a hundred acres: nature trails, a wildlife viewing area, a pond and an arboretum of native plants. It was established in 1968 and the Bahamas National Trust took it on in 1992, so it is a working conservation site rather than a garden attached to a hotel. Garden of the Groves is the other one, further out from the centre and laid out as a park to walk through. The Grand Bahama Museum and the Junkanoo Museum of the Bahamas cover the island's history and its carnival and St Vincent de Paul Church is the landmark most people photograph on the way past. None of this is far apart, which is the point of a day in the town. The wider island, the caves and the national park among it, is the Miami to Grand Bahama crossing instead.

Port Lucaya is a suburb of Freeport and the centre of the island's tourism: most of the resorts, the operators and the activities are within a few streets of each other there. The marketplace at the middle of it is open air, a colourful run of shops, restaurants, bars and water sports desks. The conch salad is made in front of you. Count Basie Square is the square in the middle and it carries live Bahamian music at night, which is the reason an overnight in Freeport is worth more than a day trip for some parties. The Ye Olde Pirate Bottle House Museum is the odd one on that side of town, with glass bottles going back to the 1700s. The dolphin encounter and the shark dive that run out of Lucaya belong to the island rather than the town and they sit on the Grand Bahama page.

The town has its own beaches and they are different from each other, which matters more than it sounds when the day is only six hours long. Xanadu Beach sits beside the abandoned Xanadu Resort and has no amenities at all, so it is the quiet one: sunset walks and the cruise ships standing out of the harbour. Lucayan Beach runs in front of the big resorts and non-guests buy a day pass for the loungers and the bar. Williams Town Beach stretches west from Island Seas with a paved walkway and is best at low water, because at high tide it narrows to a strip. Fortune Beach is the far end of the run, quiet once you walk away from the resort, good for beachcombing and for snorkelling off the sand. A beach picnic goes to whichever of them is empty that day and water toys turn an afternoon on the sand into one on the water.

A private seaplane charter Miami to Freeport also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on south and east to Bimini, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one town into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. The full town guide sits on the Freeport destination page, the packaged version is the Freeport getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.