6 Things We Always Tell People Before They Visit Aruba

Most people plan Aruba the same way. Book a room on Palm Beach, figure you’ll grab taxis, tell yourself you’ll find the good restaurants once you’re on the ground.

We’ve been going long enough to know that’s the expensive version of a great trip. So here’s the answer we give everybody who asks, and people ask constantly. The short version is that we don’t really vacation in Aruba. We live there for a week. Almost everything below comes out of that one difference.

1. Book a house, not a room. Aruba has different neighborhoods, same as anywhere else, and ours is Noord, so we always end up in an Airbnb there. Search that name on Airbnb or VRBO, and you’ll land about five minutes from the low-rise hotels and about five minutes from the high-rise ones, which is the whole appeal. Close to everything, in the middle of nothing.

There’s one detail worth knowing before you start clicking through listings: nothing in Noord sits on the sand. Nearly every beach in Aruba is public property, so there are barely any houses on the water anywhere on the island. You can be walking distance, or right across the street, but you won’t be on it. If waking up on the beach is the whole dream, look south toward San Nicolas instead, where that’s actually possible.

We’ve never stayed down there ourselves, though friends of ours have and had a great time. It depends on your flow. Safety won’t factor into the decision either way, since we’ve never been anywhere on that island that felt like somewhere we shouldn’t be.

2. Rent a car. This one isn’t a preference. Even if you booked a hotel with a pool, a beach chair, and no plans to leave either one, get the car. The island is small and genuinely easy to drive, the rental companies shuttle you from the airport straight to your vehicle, and Google Maps, Waze, and Apple Maps all work fine down there now. The argument for it is short: taxis in Aruba are dumb expensive.

3. Stock the kitchen before you unpack. The house only pays off if you use it. We keep reusable bags folded into our backpacks, and the grocery store is the first stop off the plane, before the rental, before the beach, before anything. That one trip covers breakfast every morning, a few lunches, and whatever’s going on the grill.

4. Eat where the island eats. Mornings belong to Eduardo’s for the fresh juices and Bright Bakery for everything else. Bright is where the locals go. Around eleven dollars gets you a real breakfast, and you’ll walk out with fresh bread and cupcakes you didn’t plan on buying. If you ever need a cake for something, that’s the place. When you want a slower morning, Craft and Lola sit right next to each other and handle brunch.

Dinner takes less strategy. The Local Store turns out some of the best wings on the island, and Wacky Wahoo’s has held the top spot on our list for years now. When you go, tell them we sent you. Yemanja downtown is the one to save for the night; dinner should feel like an occasion.

The drive to San Nicolas earns its own recommendation, because Kamini’s Kitchen is down there and the goat is worth the trip on its own. The place is local in the best way; she’s there most nights, and she’ll give you love. Beyond those, new spots open constantly, so leave a night or two unplanned and go find one.

5. Then do almost nothing, on purpose. People ask what we get into at night, and the honest answer is not much. There’s nightlife in Aruba if that’s what you want, party buses and all, but we go there to unwind. We are lazy beach people. Speaker, cooler, books, beverages, a lot of sunrises and sunsets, and a lot of family time.

Which is also why our answer to the beach question annoys people. Our favorite beach is all of them. Arashi, Palm Beach, Eagle Beach, we like every one of them. Rodgers Beach down by San Nicolas is worth the drive, and conveniently, that’s the same drive as Kamini’s. The spice of Aruba is the beach, and once you make peace with that, the rest of your planning gets a lot shorter.

6. Come for the beach, stay for the people. The part nobody thinks to ask about is the part that actually keeps us going back. You’ll meet vacationers anywhere in the world, but the people who are from Aruba are just genuinely good people, and that changes how a whole week feels. Aruba is cool for cool people.

The weather handles the rest. They boast something like 358 days of sunshine a year, which means there’s no wrong month and nothing to overthink about timing. Just go.

If you want the more detailed answers, the ones that don’t fit in a blog post, reach out. We pretty much know everybody on that island. Call or text us at (703) 991-7900, email us at info@ajteamrealty.com, or visit ajteamrealestate.com. And whenever you’re ready to talk about an address a little closer to home, you know where to find us. You have the dream. We have the address.