By Alexander Britell and Guy Britton

The Southeast Peninsula of St Kitts is raw, untouched and brilliantly green, one of the most beautiful places in the West Indies.

It’s a winding, scenic road to get here, a striking setting that’s now home to one of the region’s top hotels, the Park Hyatt St Kitts.

But that’s not the only thing that’s here.

If you make the turn just before you reach the Park Hyatt, you’ll find a rather special place: Cockleshell Bay.

Or, as we call it, “Beach Bar City.”

You see, this tucked-away stretch of turquoise shoreline on Cockleshell has quietly become one of the Caribbean’s new beach bar capitals.

A beach that first found renown with the years-ago debut of the Reggae Beach Bar now teems with colorful beach shacks, beach huts, beach lounges and everything in between.

This sandy crescent on St Kitts’ stunning Southeast Peninsula has a beach bar for every kind of traveler, whether you want something a little more upscale at the Spice Mill; toes-in-the-sand shack-style at No Limit or Lion Rock, or a classic rum punch-filled afternoon at Reggae Beach.

And the best part? Every one of them offers lounge chairs, meaning you can come here and truly spend the entire day, whether you’re here on a cruise, staying at the Park Hyatt or on a week-long St Kitts vacation.

While every island has its classic beach bars, it isn’t quite so easy to find beaches like this, where you have an entire collection of spots on one stretch of beach.

That takes Cockleshell into rarefied territory — on par with legendary beaches like Sandy Ground in Anguilla, Orient Bay in St Martin and, a more recent addition, Le Carbet in Martinique.

Of course, the new beach bar hub at Cockleshell complements another beach bar-filled St Kitts coastline on Frigate Bay, home to the “Strip,” the best nightlife spot on the island.

That, along with the nearby Salt Plage, also set on the Southeast Peninsula, gives St Kitts a rather enviable beach bar portfolio.

You might as well call it Beach Bar Country.