Aruba

Aruba is the answer I give when someone asks for the Caribbean trip that won't be cancelled: it sits almost entirely outside the hurricane belt — roughly one direct hit per century — and it's the driest island in the region at about 18 inches of rain a year, which also keeps dengue at lower intensity than most of the Caribbean. Dengue is still endemic, so daytime DEET stays on the packing list, but the conversation is lower-stakes than for Puerto Rico. The tap water is a genuine bright spot — reverse-osmosis desalination exceeding WHO standards — so skip the bottled-water budget.

The real action item is insurance. Aruba has one hospital — Dr. Horacio Oduber, 248 beds, 20-plus specialties — and anything beyond its capability means evacuation to Curaçao, Colombia, or Miami, at $15,000–25,000 by the State Department's own estimate. US health insurance typically doesn't cover Aruba, so medevac coverage is the consultation's one non-negotiable. Two thirty-second footnotes: Dutch law doesn't allow posting bond if you're detained, and Arikok's trade winds mask how fast sun and dehydration work.