Best Islands to Visit for Honeymoon

Hey folks,

My wife and I are planning a three week trip from December 20 to January 13. We are interested in visiting two to three islands in the Caribbean depending on cost and budget. There are so many islands and it’s hard to pick without any experience. An example of our preferences is when we went to Hawaii we very much preferred The Big Island over Oahu.

We are looking for:

– Somewhere we can explore independently without needing a guide every day

– Somewhere with hiking and snorkeling

– Somewhere that has plenty of interesting non-touristy to medium-touristy locations that are fun to explore (we don’t mind heavy-touristy areas, we just don’t want to spend the bulk of our time in them)

– Great food would be awesome, but we also do a lot of cooking at home and are okay with that

– We are not interested in resort, condos or hotels. We love small houses, guest houses, cottages, etc.

– Excluding the cost of flights we are looking at a $5000CAD ($3,554USD) – $8000CAD ($5,686USD) budget

Any help for a couple clueless Canadians?

Thank you!