Geejam

Hotel description

Chris Blackwell’s Island Outpost hotel group has always made the most of its music-business connections, for good reason — Jamaica without reggae just wouldn’t be the same (and Chris Blackwell, without Island Records, might not own hotels in the first place). With Geejam, however, this marriage goes a step further.

This place was actually a recording studio first, where the likes of Gorillaz and Björk went away to focus anyone on the music. It seems the beachside surroundings and the sunny contemporary interiors are a great improvement over the usual dank and darkened studio control room, and the lodging experience turned out to be one that’s well worth sharing with the non-musician general public.

Any hotel in the Caribbean that’s worth staying at had better be small, but this one is vanishingly tiny — just seven units (though one of those is a three-bedroom villa). And for all the place’s hipster cachet, it’s kept remarkably low-key; it’s closer to some of Jamaica’s finest beaches than it is to the nightlife in Port Antonio, ten minutes away. There’s some small chance it’ll be a bit stressful for a musician on holiday, being that close to the workplace — but for anyone else, a surprisingly effective escape.

How to get there:

The main international airport is Norman Manley in Kingston. Guests can connect to a twenty-minute private flight via plane over the Blue Mountains to a local airstrip, known as Ken Jones. Geejam is approximately 30 mins. drive from Ken Jones, which is complimentary. Alternatively, a private helicopter can also be chartered directly to and from the airport, and for those who are a little squeamish with small planes, Geejam is currently a two & a half hour drive from Kingston. Contact the hotel's reservations dept. to make arrangements.