Aruba. October 2025.
Postcard from Aruba
Jet-setting in Q4 2025 with a 5 day Girls’ trip to Aruba! It’s actually my first time visiting the Caribbean, as I am not exactly a beach person and I can’t swim so that limits my options for activities…
Day 1 - Start of a Beach Vacay
We departed rainy New York on a cool October morning, hit up the new Capital One lounge at Terminal 4 in JFK (breakfast bagels did not disappoint), and made it to Aruba around lunch time. My friend and I followed the signs through immigration and realized that we’re going through a digital immigration system, and that we won’t get a stamp on our passport :( I regretted not going through the regular line like my other friend because the stamp was cute!
We took a taxi to our airbnb to drop off our bags, then walked right to a beach front restaurant for lunch and a bar for drinks till it was time to check in to our stay.
Our airbnb is located right near Eagle Beach so our afternoon was spent chilling at the beach and watching the sunset. We walked all along the coast and back before heading back to our airbnb, wash up and to dinner at the restaurant called Marea which is located inside the 5 star resort right next to us. We sat outside and enjoyed the evening breeze and live music before knocking out because we all woke up at 4:30AM to catch a flight this morning.
Day 2 - Exploring San Nicolas and South of the Island
We slept in today (yay to no alarms) and decided to rent a car for the next 3 days to get around the island. We hadn’t really planned for the trip so we spend the morning doing a little bit of that and figuring out our plan for the next few days and booked all the excursions. The car rental was down the street from where we were staying, and the process was simple with a US license. We grabbed breakfast at a place called Clover just next door to the car rental, and headed south towards San Nicolas for lunch.
Lunch was at O'Niel Caribbean Kitchen and we each got a different dish to share - the oxtail was my favorite and it was super tender!
After lunch we drove to Baby Beach on the southern tip of the island. It’s a curved beach and the probably one of the best beaches I’ve ever been to - the white sandy beach and the crystal clear water made it perfect to just float in the water (with a floatie for me).
After the sun sets, on our way back up the island we stopped in downtown for dinner. The wait at Lima Bistro was an hour (there was a cruise docking tonight and the downtown area seems a little more busy) so we asked the hostess where she’d recommend us to get a drink. She suggested Apotek, a speakeasy about a 10 min walk away in a dark alleyway behind a giant Zara. The drinks were all “prescriptions” and you pick up or choose your meds from a wall. It was a really cool concept and the drinks were great too! After a round of drinks it was time to head back to Lima Bistro and the food was absolutely amazing. The mushroom appetizer with sweet potato and boondi was my favorite even though it didn’t get its own photo spotlight below.
Day 3 - NATURAL POOL OFF-ROAD SAFARI and Beach afternoon (again)
We had an early start this morning as it’s one of excursion days! We booked the Natural Pool off-road safari tour that would pick us up on a jeep and take us to Arikok National Park. We had looked up options to access the pool ourselves and it was either renting a jeep as you need a special vehicle for the terrain or hiking a long way so tour it is. The tour includes the entry fee to the national park as well as snorkeling gear for the natural pool so it seemed like the easiest option. Our guide picked us up from the 5 star hotel near our stay at 7:30AM, made a few other stops at hotels for our small group and we were on our way. The first stop was a viewpoint inside Arikok National Park, which is protective land that covers almost 20% of the island. It’s home to many animals that are indigenous to the island. You can see the entire island from the viewpoint as well as Mount Jamanota, the tallest mountain on the island. All of my photos are slightly slanted because it’s nearly impossible to get a straight shot in a moving jeep, so I’ll spare everyone from the videos I tried to take.
Next up is the Conchi Natural Pool, located on the east side of the park. I continued to try to take photos in the moving jeep but failed, and now the Caribbean Sea is in sight.
Conchi Natural Pool
The jeeps are parked in the parking area and everyone takes this walking path towards the natural pool. The pool isn’t too big and everyone just leaves their belongings right on the rocks and make a queue. There were about 4-5 other tour groups around the time we entered so the pool was pretty packed. Despite the pool being relatively small - about 20 feet by 25 feet, it’s surprisingly deep right in the middle. For someone like me who can’t swim, I stayed close to the slippery rocks and found a ledge I could sit on to duck my head to the water. The water is clear and you can see all the fish up close - and I saw some pretty big blue and colorful ones! I’ve tried snorkeling before in Thailand but never have I seen so many fish up this close! Crabs were also perched up on the rocks so everywhere you look there is nature. Others may say this is a tourist trap but I really enjoyed it.
We spent about an hour at the pool before it was time to leave and dry off, and then to our next stop which is the Natural Bridge. On our way we saw a small owl which is indigenous to the area!
The Natural Bridge is created by waves and strong winds out of coral limestone. The larger portion of the Natural Bridge had collapsed after Hurricane Ivan but a smaller portion remained.
The last stop of the safari tour was the California Lighthouse, located on the northern part of the island. The lighthouse was named after a ship that sank on the northern most tip of the island. It’s currently closed for restoration so we couldn’t access the lighthouse. On good day you can see the coast of Venezuela since it's only 80 miles away from the island!
After getting dropped off back at the hotel, we repacked our bags and drove to lunch at Zeeover, a seafood restaurant that let’s you pick out your own fish and shrimps that are caught daily. We ordered 2 pieces of fish and about 0.75kg of shrimp, sat outside by the pier and waited for the food to be prepared. I don’t know what sort of seasoning they used but the food was delicious! I normally hate peeling shrimps but this one I kept going back for more. The photos aren’t doing the food justice so please don’t skip out on this spot if you’re ever in Aruba.
For the afternoon beach time we were deciding between Roger’s Beach and Baby Beach and while Roger’s Beach is lesser known the views at Baby Beach were better so we set up camp there at the same spot we were in yesterday. We did some beach reading, and my friends encouraged me to get more comfortable in the water so I used the floatie to learn to kick - which came in handy for the excursion tomorrow. They even taught me how to float on my back! This was a first for me since attempting swimming lessons when I was a teen, so definitely a huge milestone for me to conquering my fear of the ocean! We stayed till sunset before we headed back to our airbnb to wash up.
Dinner was at Madame Janette in Noord. It’s opened by a German and we got drinks at the bar before getting seated in the outdoor area. The portions are huge and I really enjoyed the schinzel!
Day 4 - Donkey Sanctuary and Sail & Snorkel Tour
The first activity of the day was the Donkey Sanctuary, which has been on the island for 28 years. Donkeys were first introduced to the island by the Spanish in the colonial era to transport goods but were released into the wild when they were no longer needed. The Donkey Sanctuary now cares for over 100 donkeys, and have peacocks and cats at the farm as well. We paid $1 for the food and can feed the donkeys from within the fence. The donkeys were very cute and mostly gentle, but the peacocks can get little aggressive and comes for all the droppings and will snatch them up right away. The sun was shining bright and the temperature got quite hot so we stayed mostly in the covered area.
We headed to lunch at Bugaloe, which is located at the same pier we’ll be departing from for our afternoon excursion. The Sail and Snorkeling tour departed from the pier at 2PM, and our first stop was the Arashi Reef near the north coast. Once the boat anchored at a spot everyone is free to go snorkeling and explore the area on their own. The water was a bit choppy so I wasn’t going to get into the water at first, but my friends went ahead and said the vest and the flippers helped so I went into the water for a little bit to see the reef and the fish. The currents were pretty strong and I was afraid to get too far away from the boat, but the views underwater was amazing and there were plenty of fish and corals.
The next stop on the boat was the Antilla Shipwreck, a German cargo ship that was intentionally sunk during WWII before the Dutch could board. The ship now sits about 50 ft below water, and it’s the largest shipwreck in the Caribbean. There were other boats that were also docking in the area and at first we couldn’t locate the shipwreck, but once someone pointed out the direction a bit further out from where our boat I held on tight to my vest and swam over and the sunken ship and schools of fish appeared. Whenever I felt the current pushing me away I had to remind myself that I have a life vest on and can paddle my way back to the boat. I am so glad I went into the water because this was probably the the coolest thing I have seen underwater. Closer to the boat the guides were throwing bread into the water to attract more fish so we got another look at all the colorful fish.
We hung out on the deck of the boat until we made it back to the pier and we decided to take a swim at Palm Beach for a little bit before heading back to the airbnb to shower.
In the evening we went to Boutique Speakeasy for drinks before dinner at Bohemian. The paella and lamp chops were my favorite! We walked around the busy area a bit after dinner and I got myself another postcard. Just before heading back to the airbnb we got gas for the car. The station doesn’t take card at the machine and you have to pay inside, so we had to do the conversion from Aruban Florin to USD and estimate the amount of gas we needed. We ended up paying 3 separate times before finally filling the tank up.
Day 5 - Homebound
On our last day in Aruba it actually rained in the morning so we didn’t get a chance for a final beach time in the morning. We slept in a bit longer than usual, packed up our bags, and drove to a nearby strip mall to drop off my postcard at the mailbox and do some final souvenir shopping. We then returned the car, got a quick breakfast (at the same spot near the car rental), and called a taxi for the airport.
And now heading home with so many more new experiences than before!