Little Corn Island – Worth It!

All photos by Josh Meister Photo.

Little Corn Island has been on my list for at least 10 years. I found out about it during an “affordable travel” Lunch and Learn session at my first corporate job. It was part of a smattering of destinations whoever was hosting the meeting thought seemed cheap enough for starry-eyed newbies with a very low salary, like me. A ton of tourists weren’t flocking there because many people saw Nicaragua as a still unsafe destination, and therefore the food and lodging prices were low, low, low. I bounced home after work that day excited to start planning an exotic trip to the “next Costa Rica”. And then was swiftly heartbroken when I checked out flights and realized: 1) Little Corn Island is a hidden gem for a reason – it’s a total pain in the ass to get to, and 2) that makes it not at all inexpensive in the slightest bit. I tucked it away into the “someday” file and didn’t pull it out again until we put up our giant wall map and starting sticking Post-Its on all the places we wanted to visit.

Fast forward to the European portion of our trip and the Goulash Disko festival in Croatia when we befriended an awesome group of mainly-Brits that became our buddies for the week. They asked about our upcoming destinations, and towards the end of that list, we mentioned Nicaragua. One of the couples said they had been living there as ex-pats for a few years and generously offered to let us stay with them when we made it to their neck of the woods. We asked where in the country they lived, and the reply was – wait for it – Little Corn Island! Of course I squealed awkwardly and told them that’s where we wanted to go and how long I had been wanting to go for. They were pretty unfazed by that – apparently everyone who long-term travels wants to go to Little Corn at some point. In addition to being gorgeous, it’s also very American-friendly – you can use US dollars to pay for anything, and most of the island is English speaking – not exactly the best for us heading here right after a week of immersive Spanish lessons, but oh well!

GETTING THERE

There’s several options for getting to Little Corn. The most direct is to fly on a prop plane from Managua, the main airport in Nicaragua, to Big Corn Island (CIS) on La Costena Airlines, the only flight company that has a presence on the Corn islands. This route may or may not involve a quick stop at Bluefields airport as well. The pricing seems to be fairly unchanging, costing us each $164 round trip.

Once you arrive on Big Corn, you have to take a taxi about 10-15 mins to the port where you can catch a panga boat to Little Corn. There’s two to three pangas a day at times that confusingly don’t really line up with the flights. So we had to wait a few hours for the 4pm panga. People started arriving for tickets as early as an hour to an hour and a half before the scheduled boat time, and if they sell all the tickets, they’ll just leave early, so it’s good to be prepared. We dutifully arrived an hour early, but didn’t make it on the over-sold panga that got sent off 30 mins early, but they assured us they would still have a 4pm panga as scheduled, which wound up being more of a 4:30pm panga as they waited for a full boat before taking off.

The 30-minute ride is NOT fun. We were lucky to have calm waters both there and back, but the boats are tiny, and there’s a very good chance that most of the passengers will get wet at some point during the ride. We secured seats towards the back, which is helpful, but I basically thought of it as an un-amusing amusement park ride.

ACCOMMODATIONS

The island itself is pretty small, about 1.5 square miles, and you can make your way around most of it on foot, exploring tiny coves and empty beaches and luxuriating in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. It’s, in a word, stunning. Most of the restaurants are in the central part of the island where the boat docks as well as a few hostels, like Three Brothers, the most highly recommended one. Rooms there range from $20-$45 a night, and they are really basic. There’s one super luxe resort on the island, Yemaya, where the rooms easily run upwards of $700 a night.

There’s also a few midrange options and simple one-room beach bungalows scattered around the east side of the island, and you can expect to pay around $100-$150+ a night for those. So the secret’s out, and the accommodations are no longer in that entry-level salary range of my long-ago Lunch and Learn.

We counted ourselves and our budget very lucky to have a free place to stay. And a gorgeous one at that. Our friends live on an expansive piece of coast on the southwest side of the island, with an excellent view of the sunset.

ACTIVITIES

Likkie Corn, as it’s affectionately called, has tons of activities. Aside from lazing around on the beach all day, which we certainly did during our week there, there’s diving and snorkeling, day trips to the Pearl Keys (a group of mostly uninhabited postcard-esque islands with a storied history), plenty of restaurants to check out, water activities, and fishing.

You can also easily spend an entire day walking around, checking out the jungle as well as the local village and maybe catching a baseball game, and on foot is essentially the only way to get around the island – no motorized vehicles are allowed, even golf carts or scooters.

NIGHTLIFE

This island likes itself a good party, and we happened to be visiting during their annual mini music festival, Corn Splash. Tons of talented artists did their thing for three nights straight at Demitiri’s, one of the restaurant darlings of the islands. People danced or lounged in beach chairs between the ocean and the restaurant, savoring lobster burgers, dogs wrestling in the sand between them. Tuesday nights are for tacos at The Lighthouse where you want to head a little early to catch happy hour and climb the tower beyond the restaurant for the sunset and a view over the whole island.

Tranquilo is the spot on Wednesday nights as a local troupe performs traditional music and dance outside the restaurant. Our favorite part was the vowel song (it’s exactly what you think it is) accompanied by the most hip gyrating I think we saw on our entire trip. Late night spots include Reggae Bar and Happy Hut.

FOOD

There’s some small farms on the island, but other than that, pretty much everything has to be imported, so ingredients are limited and people get creative. Coconut bread is a specialty of the island, and it’s delicious. You can find it for sale by the dock and served with breakfast at the two hot spots, El Bosque and Rosa’s, which are right next to each other and serve essentially the same breakfast for $4, which includes a drink. In addition to the other favorites mentioned above, Colorview, with one of those famed jaw-dropping views, is also a solid bet for any meal.

All images TM & © 2017 Josh Meister Photo and Shari Margolin (unless otherwise stated). Please don’t steal or “borrow” – just be cool, be cool.