The little town of Quepos is the gateway to Manuel Antonio National Park, a nature-lover’s paradise that’s home to monkeys, iguanas and the reclusive three-toed sloth. The area around Quepos also boasts some of the best beaches in Costa Rica, and the town itself has some nice restaurants.

Beautiful Isla Parida lies within the protected Gulf of Chiriquí National Park, its tranquil beaches lapped by warm, crystal clear waters where you’ll find an abundance of marine life. This is a great place to kick back and chill out for a day, in idyllic tropical surroundings.

The port of Fuerte Amador sits at the southern edge of Panama City, near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. The shining skyscrapers of the Panamanian capital are a testament to the city’s status as a key financial centre, while the tiny Casco Viejo is home to pretty colonial streets, hip hotels and happening bars.

Situated at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, Colón is not somewhere you will want to hang around for long, and serves merely as a gateway to the Canal, which will carry you to much nicer places.

Cartagena was founded by Spanish conquistadors in 1533, and the beautifully preserved centre is a real highlight of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The walled old town, the Ciudad Amurallada, is a camera-friendly collection of cobbled streets and colourful, colonial-era buildings.

Situated on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, Santa Marta is the oldest surviving Spanish colonial city in South America. The modern city lacks some of the charm of nearby Cartagena, but tourism has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, with a number of ambitious regeneration projects and a host of new restaurants and bars.

The tiny Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, located just off the coast of Venezuela, lies outside of the hurricane belt, meaning it enjoys a largely dry climate, and boasts some of the best beaches in the region, if not the world.

The gabled houses of Willemstad lend an undeniably Dutch feel to the capital of little Curaçao, with a splash of Caribbean colour thrown in. The island itself is not your typical lush tropical paradise - the landscape is characterised instead by thorny shrubs and cacti - but there are some fantastic beaches and quaint little villages.

The quiet, cactus-covered Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire is internationally renowned for its diving, ringed by spectacular coral reefs that teem with life. The capital, Kralendijk, is home to some pretty colonial architecture, and the island is also known for its flamingos and pink sand beaches.

Browse the markets of charming St George’s, fragrant with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg, and you’ll soon understand why Grenada is known as the ‘isle of spice’. This is one of the Caribbean’s most enchanting islands, fringed by gorgeous beaches and largely unsullied by mass market tourism.

Situated just to the west of the Tobago Cays, Mayreau is a tiny, barely inhabited island that can only be reached by boat. There is very little to do, which is the main attraction for those lucky few who wash up here; the palm-fringed beaches and gently lapping waters are the Caribbean island idyll par excellence.