Guadeloupe: Life in Paradise
- Mar 26
- 14 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
December 2025 - January 2026
Arriving from Dominica, I stepped off the ferry in Guadeloupe and suddenly—voilà—I was back in France.
Guadeloupe, like Martinique, isn’t merely a French territory. It is an overseas region of France, with the same status as the mainland.
French. Euros. Driving on the right.
Just a few hours earlier in Dominica, it had been...
English. Eastern Caribbean dollars. Driving on the left.
Over the past month, I’d traveled from English-speaking Saint Lucia to French-speaking Martinique, back to English in Dominica, and now to French again in Guadeloupe.
I was beginning to get linguistic whiplash.
Guadeloupe was my fourth and final Caribbean island.
But it wasn’t simply the last stop.
It was the entire reason I’d come to the Caribbean in the first place.
After speaking French exclusively in Martinique—and occasionally in Dominica with a few French people there—my rusty French was running pretty smoothly now.
My carry-on wasn’t doing quite as well though.
As I was getting off the ferry, it slipped down the ramp, bending the extended handle so it would no longer retract.
I was spending my first couple of days in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe’s largest city. I like to see something of wherever I land rather than just passing through on my way somewhere else. Even when people tell me there’s nothing much to see, I usually stay and look around for myself.
I thought, And at least I can replace the carry-on here.
I really needed to replace it. When I left Guadeloupe, I’d have only three days at home in San Francisco—more like a brief layover—before departing for six weeks in Southeast Asia, where I’d be taking smaller aircraft with more restrictive carry-on limits.
As usual when I arrive somewhere new, I started with a city tour. This time it was a private walking tour with David Grégoire, a historian and guide from mainland France who had fallen in love with Pointe-à-Pitre and written extensively about its history.
David spoke English, but he was happy to find out that I spoke French too.
Before we got started, I enlisted his help with replacing my carry-on.
Neither my French nor his English was sophisticated enough to describe a broken telescoping carry-on handle, so I just showed him instead.
David walked me in the opposite direction to a corner where he could point out some streets with shops that carried luggage. Then we turned around and headed the other way to explore Pointe-à-Pitre.
The city felt gritty and rundown to me. David saw something else. He showed me beautiful old buildings I might have walked right past and told me the stories behind them. Seeing Pointe-à-Pitre through the eyes of someone who loved it helped me appreciate it more deeply.
This is the dance between the traits of Depth and Reach that I recognize in myself.
Reach is energized by novelty — new places, new people, new experiences.
Depth is sensitive to everything around it — sights, sounds, and feelings —and wants to understand things deeply.
Here, I wanted both: to explore somewhere new and to understand it through the people I met there.
After David walked me back to my hotel, I emptied my broken carry-on and wheeled it down to the shops to show them exactly what I was looking for. I needed one this size or smaller, soft-shell with an outside pocket for my work papers. And it had to be some shade of blue, like the rest of my luggage, so they would look related.
I figured this would be easy.
It wasn’t.
I tried several shops.
Plenty of suitcases.
Nothing that worked.
But everywhere I went, people kept telling me about the same place: a large shopping center in the middle of the island with an actual luggage store.
Richard's Beach
The next morning, I picked up my rental car and headed north toward Deshaies.
Finally, I was on my way to the reason I’d come to Guadeloupe in the first place.
For many years, my neighbor Hazel and I had a standing Sunday-night hang-out date. We’d talk, we’d laugh, and we’d watch cozy murder mysteries.
Our favorite was Death in Paradise, the British mystery series set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie and filmed in Guadeloupe.
Death in Paradise is now in its fifteenth season, remains enormously popular in Britain, and has had five different lead detectives.
Richard Poole, the original detective, was always my favorite. Brilliant, prickly, socially awkward and very funny, he arrived determined to hate everything about the island.
But underneath all that resistance, he had tremendous integrity and a huge but hidden heart. I loved watching his heart gradually open to the people and then to the place.
Hazel loved the show because it reminded her of growing up in Trinidad.
For me, it provided the perfect tropical escape during my surgeries and recovery.
Like every detective who followed him, Richard was housed in a little bungalow right on a gorgeous beach. In the first episode, a colleague who had just dropped him off at his lodgings suggested they go for a walk because he was thinking too hard. Richard looked around and asked where they were supposed to walk. She stared at him as if the answer were painfully obvious: the beach, duh.
Richard seemed determined not to appreciate his ridiculously beautiful surroundings.
I felt very differently about that beach.
The real beach where the show is filmed is called Plage de la Perle.
But in my mind, it will always be Richard’s beach.
While I sat at home in San Francisco with ice on my knees, I dreamed about walking on that beach.
When I started planning the trip, I tried to talk Hazel into coming with me. But she and her family were moving to Amsterdam.
“Okay,” I told her. “I’ll take you with me.”
Now I was driving toward Richard’s beach.
With my new knees.
I arrived at my little vacation-apartment complex, Gîte Rose des Vents, five minutes’ walk from Plage de la Perle, with enough time to relax for a while before working with some coaching clients later in the evening on the phone.
After my recent knee surgeries, I was still walking with a cane, so the manager, João, who was from Portugal, came out to help me unload the car.
I thanked him with one of the few words of Portuguese I knew: “Obrigada.”
When João took my carry-on out of the trunk, he tried to retract the handle.
I told him it was broken and asked if he knew where I could get a new one.
He recommended the same large shopping center in the middle of the island that everyone in Pointe-à-Pitre had been telling me about.
Surely, this was where I would find my carry-on.
I decided I’d make a pilgrimage there when I drove to Sainte-Anne later in the week.
Then I unpacked and walked down to the beach.
And there it was.
The beach I had seen so many times on television.
Richard’s beach.
I walked down onto the sand and looked for his shack.
It wasn’t there.
And the sea was rough.
Kinga had warned me about this.
Back in June, when I booked the Death in Paradise tour, I reached out to Kinga, the guide.
She had been unusually generous, becoming almost an informal local advisor before I even arrived.
I ran my accommodation choices in Deshaies past her. She approved of Gîte Rose des Vents.
I told her about my knees and the kind of sea I loved to soak in: calm water where I could wade in gradually. She’d warned me that Plage de la Perle could be rough and suggested I spend part of my time in Sainte-Anne, on the other side of the island.
Now I could see exactly what she meant.
The waves were much too rough for me to go in safely.
But that was okay. I had adjusted my expectations to just walking on Richard’s beach.
I was finally here. And I was happy.
That evening I worked with my clients and started rewatching the first two seasons of Death in Paradise on my iPad.
The Death in Paradise Tour
The next morning, Kinga picked me up in a little minivan for the Death in Paradise tour with her small group.
After all those months of messages, I was surprised when I met her. I’d assumed she was local.
She was Polish.
Many years ago, I had Polish friends in London, and visited Poland at the time. I had picked up quite a few words of Polish, which delighted her.
Since we were already there, we started the tour at Plage de la Perle, where Kinga solved The Mystery of the Missing Shack.
It wasn’t a permanent building.
The series is filmed during the quieter part of the year, when filming won’t interfere as much with the local tourist season.
At the beginning of each filming season, the crew builds the detective’s shack again. They close off the beach during filming, and when the season is over, the shack comes down.
So Richard’s beach was there.
Richard’s shack was not.
A large tour coach had just arrived from one of the cruise ships, full of British Death in Paradise fans. In addition to our little group of six, Plage de la Perle was now crawling with British tourists.
I had promised Hazel I would take her with me, so I started making little videos for her.
“This is for Hazel,” I told Kinga, turning the camera on her.
“Hi, Hazel!” she said.
With all those British tourists milling around behind her, Kinga explained to Hazel how they rebuild the detective’s shack for each filming season.
Hazel was on the tour with me after all.
From Plage de la Perle, we headed into Deshaies, which becomes the fictional town of Honoré in Death in Paradise.
Of all the towns I’d visited on these four Caribbean islands, Deshaies was definitely the most charming. Little cafés and restaurants lined the bay, right along the water. It was easy to see why the location scouts had chosen it for the show.
Our first stop in town was Catherine’s Bar for drinks, where I paid about €10 for a lemonade.
Next, we headed to the police station.
The police station was also packed with British tourists from a cruise ship.
Walking inside “the police station” was surreal. I recognized everything from the show—the desks, the familiar little room, the jail cells—but somehow none of it was where I expected it to be.
The cruise-ship visitors would see it once and leave.
But I was staying in Deshaies for several days. I told Yannis, the guy taking tickets at the door, that I’d love to come back when it wasn’t so crowded.
He said my admission ticket for good for another visit.
I promised him I’d be back soon.
Life at Plage de la Perle
Even the name of my little gîte—a French vacation rental — delighted me.
Of course, I knew enough French to understand Rose des Vents meant: “Rose of the Winds.” I thought it was a lovely name.
But later I discovered another layer of meaning. Rose des vents is the French term for a compass rose—the beautiful diagram on a map that shows the cardinal directions and also the directions of the winds.
I love maps. I love knowing where I am, seeing where I’m going, and finding my way.
And that was what I was doing here.
I was finding my way around Guadeloupe, the island that had been the reason for this whole Caribbean journey.
But in a larger sense, after two knee surgeries and months of recovery, I was finding my way back into the life I wanted.
I hadn’t known any of that when I chose Gîte Rose des Vents.
I just thought it was a pretty name.
By now, Reach had been very busy.
Ferry! New island! City tour! Death in Paradise tour! New people! French! Polish! Portuguese!
Reach was having a wonderful time.
But after all that stimulation, Depth needed something very different.
Downtime.
Unstructured time.
No agenda.
Time to decompress.
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day gave me exactly that kind of spaciousness.
I slept in.
I walked on the beach.
I talked with people I met there, using some of the Creole I’d learned on other islands, especially “Bonjou! Sakafèt?” (Hello! How’s it going?)
I watched more episodes of Death in Paradise.
On New Year’s Eve, I had a lovely lobster dinner at one of the crowded restaurants along the beach.
I’d stopped thinking of it only as Richard’s beach.
In my few days there, it had gradually become my beach.
There was one thing at the gîte I couldn’t master: the back door.
Finally, I asked João for help. I told him the back door was so complicated I couldn’t figure out how to lock it.
“Of course it’s complicated,” he said. “It’s French. Only French people know how to operate that door.”
Lucinda’s on the Case
After the holiday, I went back into Deshaies to explore on my own. I started at the Botanical Garden as soon as it opened, wandering among tropical flowers, trees with giant spreading trunks and parrots in their colorful houses before the crowds arrived.
Depth takes in everything in its environment.
I’ve learned that I can take in more beauty when I’m not also taking in crowds and noise.
Before lunch, I parked in downtown Deshaies for the day.
And then I acquired a case of my own.
The Mystery of the French Parking Meter.
I couldn’t figure out how to get it to accept my payment. Apparently, French parking meters were complicated too.
Hmmm. I didn’t want to get a ticket. I looked around and happened to notice the real police station across the street.
So I went inside and explained that I’d tried to pay. The police told me not to worry.
“And I won’t get a ticket?”
No. I’d tried to pay. I’d told them. It was fine.
Case closed.
Then I had lunch at a restaurant Kinga had recommended.
In the afternoon, I returned to the Death in Paradise “police station,” which in real life is actually the offices of the church next door.
This time, the cruise-ship crowds were gone.
Yannis at the front door recognized me and welcomed me back.
I was the only visitor, so I took over.
Damon was working at the front desk. He’d been an extra on Death in Paradise when he was a child.
I told him about Hazel and asked if he would help me make a little movie for her.
“Oh, no, no, no,” he protested, suddenly shy.
“Please. She’s from Trinidad, and we watched Death in Paradise together while I was recovering from my knee surgery.”
He finally agreed.
The moment he said yes, the whole thing took on a life of its own.
Now that we were making a movie, I needed a production crew.
I was not only the producer. I was also the director.
I cast Damon as the new detective.
Yannis was promoted to cinematographer.
Damon put on the detective’s hat, sat down at Richard’s desk, and answered the phone.
“Lucinda, Camille’s not here. There’s been a murder. Will you help me solve the case?”
Of course I would.
We were making the whole thing up as we went along.
Somehow, in the next plot twist, I went from helping solve the murder to being implicated in it.
Damon marched me into the jail cell.
“For your crime, I’m putting you in jail.”
Our unauthorized Death in Paradise spinoff was a great success.
Audience: one.
I’d promised Hazel I would take her with me.
And I did.
Adventure in the Jungle
Since the Great Carry-On Quest was still unresolved, as I was leaving Deshaies, I planned to stop at the island’s main mall on my way to Sainte-Anne. By now the place had become almost mythical: somewhere inside it, surely, was a luggage store with my perfect carry-on.
I even managed to squeeze all my luggage into the trunk so nothing would be visible while I shopped.
I still didn’t know the name of the mall. Or the luggage store. But I’d been told which exit to take off the main road.
“You can’t miss it.”
I missed it.
I got off the road, tried to find my way back to it, got back on the main road, and tried again.
Eventually, I gave up on the mythical mall.
Sainte-Anne was already programmed into my GPS, so I followed it.
I always travel with a paper map. I love maps. I like knowing where I am and seeing where I’m going. I’d studied the route across Guadeloupe and fully intended to take the longer, easier way back through Pointe-à-Pitre and then around the coast.
I assumed that was where my GPS was taking me.
My GPS had other ideas.
The road got smaller and smaller. There were still houses here and there, but eventually I was on a one-lane road through the jungle.
Then I lost the GPS signal.
I knew the road had to come out somewhere. And as long as I kept going in the same general direction, I had to end up on the other side of the island eventually.
So I kept going.
This is much closer to what I mean by adventure than anything involving bungee jumping.
Finally, I came to a dead end where some girls were selling fruit from a stand.
My GPS was gone. The road was gone. But there were people.
I got out, told them in French that I was trying to get to Sainte-Anne, and asked which way to go.
They pointed me in the right direction.
My new human navigation system worked perfectly.
I kept driving.
Eventually, the road widened, houses and shops began appearing again, and my GPS came back.
The route was about half the distance of the coastal road but took twice the time.
But I had made it across the island.
The Sea and the Suitcase
In Sainte-Anne, I loved my little hotel right on the beach, Le Nil. My light, airy room had a lovely bed draped in mosquito netting and a private balcony overlooking the sea.
As usual, I’d chosen it largely by listening to my intuition. From the photos, I could tell it had character and a sea view, and even one of the nicest rooms was reasonably priced.
Intuition is one of Depth’s many gifts.
Stéphanie, the owner, was from mainland France and had lived in Guadeloupe for years. She was kind and didn’t speak English, which gave me one last chance to use all that French I’d been polishing up.
Naturally, I told her about the suitcase saga.
She recommended a store in another town down the coast where she was sure I could find what I was looking for.
The next morning, I got in the car and went looking.
I found the store.
I did not find the carry-on.
The Great Carry-On Quest would continue.
Fortunately, Kinga had wisely suggested Sainte-Anne for something much more important:
the calm water and gentle surf.
Just five minutes from my hotel, I found exactly the kind of sea I’d been looking for.
My days in Sainte-Anne settled into an easy rhythm.
Reach had certainly had its adventures. Now Depth needed something different again.
Spaciousness.
In the mornings, I sat on the balcony overlooking the sea with my coffee. I wrote, read, worked with coaching clients by phone, and planned various portions of the rest of my crazy 2026 travels.
Sometime in the afternoon, I put on my water shoes, slipped my room key into the pocket of my board shorts, and walked down to the beach.
And then I walked into the sea.
At the beginning of my Caribbean adventure, I first found my sea state at Sugar Beach in Saint Lucia—that place where gradually there is nothing left to figure out, nowhere else I need to be, nothing I need to do.
Here in Sainte-Anne, at the end of my Caribbean journey, I found it again.
I could stop thinking.
I could stop solving problems.
I could just be in the sea.
And after everything it had taken to get here—the knee surgeries, the months of recovery, and then actually making my way through four Caribbean islands—I realized something.
I had my life back.
Not some perfect version of it.
My actual life.
The one where I could work with clients in the morning, navigate a one-lane road through the jungle, turn strangers into a film crew for Hazel, continue the Great Carry-On Quest, and then walk into the sea and let all of it go for a while.
Paradise, it turned out, wasn’t a place where nothing went wrong.
It was a place where I was fully alive again when it did.
There’s an old Zen saying:
Before enlightenment—chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment—chop wood, carry water.
Because I still had to deal with the damn suitcase.
The next morning, I considered making one last attempt to find the mythical mall. But my flight to Miami was that afternoon, and trying to squeeze in one more expedition before my flight was exactly the kind of unnecessary stress I do not create for myself anymore.
So I let go of the quest and trusted that things would work out.
I returned the rental car and headed to the airport lugging the same recalcitrant carry-on I’d arrived with, its handle still defiantly extended, as if the suitcase itself were saying:
No. I will not retract.
As I boarded, a flight attendant helped me get my tote stowed safely under the seat.
Then she tried to retract the handle of my carry-on.
It wouldn't budge.
She tried again.
“This handle isn’t retracting.”
“Oh, really?” I replied innocently.
“No problem,” she said. “I’ll just store it with the cabin crew’s luggage for you.”
A Note Before You Go
If you recognized yourself in this story, you’re not alone.
I’ve created a free 30-second quiz and a free short booklet, An Introduction to Depth and Reach, to help you learn a little more about these two traits.
I hope they help you understand yourself a little better.
I’d love to share them with you.
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