A Secret Caribbean Island, the Best Starter Travel Credit Card and …

Welcome to a Secret Island on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast

Calala Island

For those who dream of a Robinson Crusoe-style vacation, the editors of Forbes Travel Guide recommend Calala Island, a tiny tropical isle off Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. After a 45-minute flight from Managua’s international airport, a speedboat takes you on a 90-minute ride to Calala, where the staff greet guests with chilled washcloths and a rum punch.

There are just four villas on Calala (which accommodate a maximum of eight people), but you can also rent out the entire island. While there are no TVs, air conditioning or alarm clocks, the island doesn’t lack for luxury—the staff of 25 tends to you and the secluded villas have floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the ocean, just a few feet away.

One of the best perks of this 10.5-acre property is the fine dining. Chef Lorne Emerson has worked in the kitchens of Le Pré Catelan in Paris and Le Saint-Martin on the French Riviera. Emerson changes the menu daily with dishes you’d expect to see in the best European restaurants, but he uses local ingredients (many of which are grown on the island). Fresh lobster is transformed into carpaccio and for the “Mystery Egg,” a dragon-fruit-cured egg yolk is enveloped in a coconut-and-Caribbean-curried meringue. One other difference from those restaurants in Europe: you’ll dine under an open-air palapa and can go barefoot to dinner.

Reading on a hammock for two with the ocean as a backdrop is one of the best activities on Calala, but for something slightly more active, water sports reign here. There are standup paddle boards and kayaks for trekking out to Little Calala Island, a nearby sliver of land that only has a small palapa, perfect for sunbathing or picnicking.

Or plunge into the hotel’s pool under the palms, swim up to the bar and have the bartender—appropriately named Eden—make you one of his tropical Piña Calalas (white rum, pineapple and fresh coconut milk). Or go snorkeling in some virtually untouched reefs where you can meet the locals, including butterflyfish, grunts, angelfish, squirrelfish and starfish.

And when you return, walk a secret trail to the spa hut, an open-air waterfront palapa amid the thick mangroves. About the only distraction while you get a massage is a warm breeze, the lapping of the waves and the rustling of palm fronds.

Your Next Luxury Safari: Tanzania’s Jabali Ridge

Last year, British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe began investing $10 million in a sustainable tourism and conservation effort in southern Tanzania—some of the country’s most vast, rugged and wildlife-rich national parks and reserves.

“My view is that human encroachment is the greatest threat to endangered wildlife and that the only way that humans and wildlife will happily coexist is when the local human population have a strong vested interest in preserving the wildlife population,” Ratcliffe told ForbesLife’s Ann Abel. “The challenge is to create jobs and livelihoods that achieve the conservation objective, and the success of such a strategy is probably best illustrated in the Okavango Delta. That is the model that we are trying to replicate in southern Tanzania.”

Ratcliffe partnered with 
Asilia,
 one of the continent’s most admired safari companies, to bring tourists to new regions and create jobs in them. And the new 
Jabali Ridge
makes the most compelling case for Ratcliffe’s vision. As its name implies, the property sits atop a ridge, with tremendous views over wide savannas dotted with spiky palms and bulblike baobab trees. It’s built on and around giant boulders, with the eight rooms linked by a series of winding, climbing walkways.

Designed by the same team as Asilia’s recent Highlands camp near the Ngorongoro Crater, Jabali Ridge’s eight accommodations have clear mesh “walls” behind louvered shutters, rough-hewn furnishings, invitingly textured linens on their king-size beds, indoor and outdoor sitting areas, and full-on bathrooms with rain showers. There’s also the three-bedroom Jabali Private House, which can be rented by one group and comes with a plunge pool and an optional private chef.

At the main camp, there’s an infinity pool, a spa and a seriously inviting lounge for when you want to skip a game drive or walk. And many guests do. Best of all, Jabali Ridge is working well for conservation—poaching has decreased in the six months it has been open.

Travel Wise

According to 
a recent “Mile High Club” survey
 on a dating site, only 5% polled have had sex on an airplane—but 78% said they would like to. Of those high-altitude hookups, 30% said it was with a stranger. The majority of the dalliances (59%) occurred in the always romantic lavatory, 31% said it happened in their seats, 9% reported that things heated up in the galley and 1% claimed they had lift-off in the cockpit, which means that a pilot was presumably—and perhaps precariously—involved.

5 Reasons Why This Is the Best Starter Travel Credit Card

Forbes has partnered with 
The Points Guy
 for our coverage of credit card products. Forbes and The Points Guy may receive a commission from card issuers.

For those who are new to the world of points and miles, selecting the right primary credit card is a vital step to achieving maximum travel rewards. But which to choose among the plethora of plastic? For The Points Guy one card stands above the rest. Here are five reasons why the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card should be the first one to add to your wallet.

1. Get Up to $1,155 in Value for Signing Up 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers a standard sign-up bonus of 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months. Based on the valuations at TPG (which are calculated based on the average worth per point you can expect to get with flight and hotel redemptions), those 50,000 points are worth $1,050. You can also earn another 5,000 points if you add an authorized user to the card and make a purchase in the first three months, boosting the value to $1,155. Plus, you don’t have to pay the card’s $95 annual fee during the first year of membership.

2. Bonus Points on Travel and Dining

The Sapphire Preferred is not alone in offering bonus points for dining and travel expenses. But what makes this card (and its more premium sibling, the Chase Sapphire Reserve) stand out is how wide the definitions span for both dining and travel. You can earn 2 points per dollar at many bars, bake shops and delivery sites like Seamless in addition to sit-down restaurants, and on the travel side you’ll earn double points on everything from Uber to rental cards.

3. Great Options for Using Points 

There are two main ways to put your points to use: by booking directly through Chase’s travel portal, where you’ll get 1.25 cents per point in value toward flights and hotels, and by transferring your points to one of Chase’s 13 travel partners, including British Airways, United, Hyatt and Marriott. And with up to 55,000 points from the sign-up bonus and adding an authorized user, you’re already well on your way to some amazing travel experiences.

4. Strong Travel Protections
 

Beyond earning you valuable points that you can redeem toward travel, the Chase Sapphire Preferred includes some strong protections that come in handy while you’re on the road. These include primary car rental insurance, trip delay insurance of up to $500 per ticket, trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance of up to $10,000 per trip and baggage delay insurance of up to $100 per day for up to five days. The card doesn’t have foreign transaction fees, either.

5. Chase’s ‘5/24’ Rule

If you’re considering applying for various credit cards, you’ll want to make sure the Sapphire Preferred is at or near the top of your list — not only because it’s a great tool to have in your wallet, but also because Chase has restrictions on how many cards it will approve you for. The issuer’s so-called 5/24 rule dictates that if you’ve opened five or more cards in the last 24 months, you likely won’t get approved for any of its cards. This means you’ll want to prioritize applying for the Sapphire Preferred and other Chase cards above signing up for cards from other issuers.