If you leave your house early enough in the morning from New York, you can be under a straw hut in Aruba by 3:00 PM, drinking rum.  You won't need to change your watch, exchange currency, or fiddle with electricity voltage converters. Just about the only thing that needs changing when visiting the island is your shoes.

There are all kinds of good reasons to visit Aruba. The first is the weather. Located 15-miles off the coast of Venezuela in the Southern Caribbean, Aruba and its dry climate is out of the hurricane belt.  The trade winds will keep you cool if temperature spikes above 82 degrees. And that's year round.

Another reason is that travel to the island, and within the island, is surprisingly easy. It's easy to get in and out of Queen Beatrix International Airport. It's especially easy to get home: passengers abound for States clear U.S. Customs and Immigrations before boarding while still in Aruba, so that you don't have to suffer the long lines at JFK.  Aruba is one of only five countries to offer this service. Plus, let's face it, Americans always feel better driving on the right side of the road.

Lastly, the culture in Aruba is diverse, and so too is its cuisine and nightlife. The native Aruban culture is a mixture of Dutch, Spanish, and Caqueto Indian ancestry. Many of the locals speak at least four languages: English, Dutch, Spanish, and "Papiamento," a Creole language which literally translates to English as "speaking," spoken in the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). There were plenty of sunburned Americans at the beaches, restaurants, or nightclubs, but I also encountered plenty of friendly Colombians, Dutch, Filipinos, and Venezuelans.

I know, I know.  Who goes to Aruba?  Well, people who are looking for a simple holiday go to Aruba. To be sure, Aruba is often described as “international lite,” designed for Americans who don't want to be hassled with the discomfort of serious international travel, such as language barriers or dealing with visas. If you're seeking "international lite," stay at the resort. If you're trying to get away from people who embrace "international lite," then explore the rest of the island.  You might be pleasantly surprised by what you'll find:  drunken butterflies, a killer hot sauce, and excellent salsa dancing.

SIT AROUND

If you're prone to laziness on vacations, the sun, sand, and high-rise hotels on the island enable you what you came to the island to do: become a vegetable. The Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino is all about its location, location, location, even if it's not on the beach. A mega hotel with 558 rooms, you can shop at over 100 boutiques, go to the movies, eat at one of its 15 restaurants, play Caribbean Stud Poker at the Crystal Casino or of course, sit by one of the three pools and drink fruity things without ever leaving the resort. Its private beach, Renaissance Island, is eight minutes away by boat, offering seclusion on a 40-acre island.  When I visited Renaissance Island late one afternoon, I saw more flamingos than people.

Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort & Casino Palm Beach, with its $40 million makeover, looked suspiciously like a boutique hotel on South Beach. Indeed, the lobby looks “sexy and trendy” as described by a Hyatt spokesperson, and the renovated rooms were roomy and full of modern comforts. 

The Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino  also located on Palm Beach, plans a serious renovation of its massive hotel this fall.  The property is well known for their gigantic rooms and private balconies. To be sure, my room was bigger and more comfortable than most Manhattan studio apartments. Unfortunately, I heard every conversation next door, as well as every time my neighbors turned on their TV, and the durations of their twice daily shower. The staff was fastidious about keeping the rooms tidy - two mornings in a row, I was awoken before 8:30 AM for housekeeping.  Thankfully, I didn't come to Aruba to catch up on my sleep.

Coming this fall is the RIU Aruba Grand. The former Aruba Grand closed for a $120M facelift and expansion by the Spanish company, to open as a mega-hotel with 451 rooms.

RUN AROUND

Ready to tear yourself away from that chaise? Are you ready to venture away from the palapa? There are plenty of short educational excursions around the island, such as the Aruba Numismatic Museum near the bus station on Weststraat in Oranjestad. Also, the Aruba Aloe Museum  located in Hato, features Aruba's oldest industry. Our adorable tour guide led us with her sweet and lilting Aruban accent. With no sense of timidity, she emphasized the staining and laxative effects of the orange sap from the aloe plant: “Please don't drink the orange oil from the plant, or you will poop all day long.”

My personal favorite educational excursion was a trip to Aruba's Butterfly Farm, located in Palm Beach across the Westin Hotel. Despite the stifling heat under the tropical netting, I was happy to explore the garden, which was teeming with butterflies from around the world. "It's happy hour for butterflies," said one tour guide, as she pointed to a mammoth butterfly feeding off an orange slice. "It's too drunk too move." The ticket to the Butterfly Farm might be one of the best deals on the island:  an admission ticket is good for the duration for your vacation.  The best time to go in is the morning, when you can see new butterflies emerging from their chrysalis for their first flight. 

Of course, shopping counts as an excursion, especially on holiday. A handful of luxury brands have boutique presence on the island (Fendi, Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci, Louis Vuitton), and Lacoste and Polo Ralph Lauren serve as handy pitstops for comfortable sportswear. Nevertheless, visits to smaller boutiques for bikinis, straw hats, or cover-ups proved more fruitful. In particular, Eva Boutique near the Renaissance Aruba Resort carried an impressive selection beach and evening wear by international designers. 

There's no shortage of watersports on the island: windsurfing, kitesurfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, water skiing, and sailing is available everywhere, and your hotel can help you arrange it. You'd be remiss to not try a sail with one of the island's many tour operators. Red Sail Sports for instance, offers an affordable 2.5 hour sail on a custom-built 62' catamaran to visit two snorkel stops. Our first stop was at Boca Catalina for snorkeling in calm waters. The second stop, in slightly rougher waters, was at the shipwreck of the Antilla (1941), a sunken German freighter. I should also mention that the sail is open bar, and that the chicken wings and pigs in a blanket offered are quite tasty.

EAT DRINK AND DANCE

There are over 100 restaurants on Aruba, with cuisines ranging from French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, and of course local fare. For breakfast, you must try a pastechi, a fried pastry filled with any number of fillings, including fish, cheese, or apparently even chop suey. Seafood is a staple on Aruba, and you will find excellent local barracuda, grouper and snapper year round (I also found some Jack, wahoo, mahi-mahi, and kingfish on menus across town.) More often than not, fish dishes were punctuated with the local hot sauce composed of a locally grown variety of scotch-bonnet pepper, known as Madame Jeanette. For better or for worse, the island is littered with American fast food restaurants.

When you tire of seafood, try Pago Pago Restaurant  a steakhouse among 7 restaurants located at the Westin Resort. For the quintessential low-key tropical restaurant, have a simple lunch at Moomba Beach Bar & Restaurant an informal restaurant under two gigantic palapas on the white sand beach, overlooking the sea. Word on the street is that the Sunday happy hour is off the hook.

The newest restaurant in town is Windows on Aruba. Located at the Divi Aruba Phoenix Beach Resort, Windows on Aruba is a  glass-enclosed dining room with a view over the signature ninth hole at The Links. Chef Leendert Klaaseens offers everything from frog legs and monkfish to pork and lentils at this decidedly fancy restaurant.  Each course suggests a wine pairing. My "garden green topped with young vegetables, grilled potato, aged Amsterdam cheese and black truffle" was flawless, and the "butter poached pound and a half Maine lobster with mashed potato, green asparagus and lemon grass" was astonishing.  Priced at $54 for the entree, I don't know what was more breathtaking - the execution, or the price tag per dish.

If Baccarat, roulette, blackjack or slot machines are calling your name, head over to the casinos in the high-rise hotels (the Aruba Crystal & Seaport Casinos at the Renaissance is even open 24-hours a day.)  I'm not much of a gambler, so  on most nights I opted for dancing at a few of the local hot spots in Oranjestad:  Carlos'n Charlies  near the harbor, as well as Mambo Jambo, and at Cafe Bahia. Every night, a diverse crowd of locals and tourists get down to reggaeton, salsa, bachata, and merengue.  First Class Karma Lounge, located on the second floor of the Aventura Mall in downtown Oranjestad, had more of a lounge feel with, a slightly more Dutch crowd bobbing their heads to house music.

Click here for Aruba addresses and contact information 

Hyon Jung Lee is a New York-based freelancer who has also written for Forbes.