Kingston
Heading back to the Jamaica of dancehall music and Bob Marley T-shirts, a drive east along the Palisadoes leads into Kingston, Jamaica's capital city, founded when refugees fled Port Royal after the earthquake. Bob Marley's former home on Hope Road has been turned into a museum featuring his music. From Kingston, journey west along highway A1 for about 18 miles (30 kilometers) to the former Jamaican capital of Spanish Town, where the town's main square is suitably Georgian and includes the remains of the 19th-century Old Courthouse on Constitution Street. On the square's west side, in a former couthouse that was demolished in the 1760s, John "Calico Jack" Rackham, a dandified pirate chief, and his female crew—Anne Bonny and Mary Read—were tried. Following their 1720 capture in Jamaican waters, the three were convicted of piracy—a crime for which Calico Jack was strung up on Rackham's Cay east of Port Royal while the women were sent to the Spanish Town jail, the ruins of which stand behind the Old Courthouse.

Negril
From Bluefields, head northwest on the coastal A2 to the resort town of Negril. There, the villas at Rondel Village (www.rondelvillage.com), with their breezy, octagonal architecture, make for a serene and friendly resort set right on Bloody Bay. It was here that John Rackham and his female cohorts were captured. The bay's sandy beach stretches for miles backed by a series of luxury all-inclusive resorts.