Tagged: beach bar, caribbean, photography, rum therapy, travel
Ever since I started this blog, Rum Therapy® has been one of those sites that I check on a daily basis. The images John and Pamela Ott share on their site and social media channels can’t help but grab your attention – they’re out of this world gorgeous and have a tendency to transfer you to another world as you get lost in a tropical daydream. More than just sharing pretty pictures, they also write about their travel adventures, managing to get their point across with a lot less words and a lot more eloquently that I could ever dream of doing. Every time I turn around, it seems like they’re heading off to another island destination and as someone who eventually would like to island hop full time one day, finding out how Rum Therapy® reached the point it is today intrigued me. When I contacted Pamela to see if there was any interest in doing a blog article on Rum Therapy®, she was more than willing to share their story and following is all the inspiration you’ll need to not give up on that daydream.
How Rum Therapy® Started
About 5 years ago, after a particularly great week (a long sail through the BVI) that just happened to include a few great rum drinks, a friend of ours commented on how tanned and relaxed we looked. She asked if we had enjoyed a bit of “Music Therapy” while in the islands (I worked as Music Therapist for many years) and John and I looked at each other and said….”No, but we sure enjoyed some Rum Therapy!” As we told more and more people about the great trip we had, we realized that the term “Rum Therapy” was really an appropriate way of describing our time in the sun that week; sailing, walking on incredibly beautiful beaches, enjoying some great beach bars, totally relaxing and enjoying a piña colada, rum punch and painkiller or two. So – we went ahead and registered the name and Rum Therapy® was born!
Who Rum Therapy® Is And What Exactly It’s All About
John and I (Pamela) are the main people behind Rum Therapy®. We’ve been traveling in the Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexico and Hawaii since we were married just a few years ago (ok, 30 or so …) and are totally enamored with the tropics. We’ve been sharing our pictures and info about our tropical adventures with our family and friends for many years and this seemed a perfect opportunity to expand our audience to other tropical travel and island lovers – and apparently there are quite a few out there! In addition to gorgeous beaches, beach bars, restaurants and places to stay, we write about and photograph adventures we’ve gotten to experience such as zip-lining with a view of Mt.Waiʻaleʻale and a doorless helicopter ride over the Na Pali Coast in Kauai, hiking to incredible waterfalls in Dominica, golfing at some of the world class courses in the Dominican Republic, exploring cenotes in Mexico and recently swimming with sharks and pigs (not at the same time!) in Exuma Cays, just to name a few. And of course, we have a rum recipe or two on the site as the taste of rum can sometimes just transport us back to a hammock on a beautiful beach!
Anyway, Rum Therapy® has really grown over the last 5 years and I now work on it full time – traveling, blogging about our travels, covering all of the social media and running our small online shop. John still works in the golf business (he’s a PGA professional) but at some point, we hope that he will be running the day to day business as well which should free us up for even more travel. Aside from us, our daughter assists with some of our technology needs.
Rum Therapy® Favorites
Now for the fun stuff! It’s so hard to narrow down our favorite beaches, beach bars and rum cocktails as we love so many of them for different reasons, but here are just a few that come to mind from our travel and experiences so far (there’s still SO much more to see!).
Beaches
Crescent Bay, Compass Cay, Exuma Cays
Cow Wreck Beach, Anegada
Treasure Cay, Abacos
Pumpkin Bluff Beach, North Caicos
Flamenco Beach, Culebra
Beach Bars
Karakter Beach Bar, Simpson Bay, St. Maarten
Sunshine Shack, Rendezvous Bay, Anguilla
Nearly any bar in the BVI (especially JVD!)
Last Bar Before the Jungle, Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau
Floyd’s Pelican Bar, Jamaica (not a beach bar per se, but one of the coolest bars we’ve been to!)
Rum Drinks
Rum Punch at Happy Island, The Grenadines
Painkillers at Soggy Dollar Bar, Jost Van Dyke
Bushwacker at The Dinghy Dock, Culebra
Goombay Smash at Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar, Green Turtle Cay
Mojitos anywhere in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
Future Plans For Rum Therapy®
Upcoming trips? BVI and USVI in the fall, and possibly some time in Barbados and Antigua/Barbuda.
Where do we hope Rum Therapy® will be in 5 years? We have a couple of different paths that we’d love to see our company take as we continue to grow, but as we make our way through life, we’ve realized that all we can do is work hard and leave the rest in God’s hands. We’re good with that and thankful for the opportunities we’ve had, the people we’ve met and the adventures that lie ahead. We are certainly enjoying the journey!
Thank you Beach Bar Bums for asking about our story!
Thanks, Pamela and John, and here’s to hoping we’re sharing rum drinks and stories at a beach bar south of St. Somewhere some day soon!
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Images are copyright Rum Therapy® and used with their permission.
