GETTING AROUND

Island Car Rentals: Montego Bay and Kingston airport terminals, 1-866-978-5335, www.islandcarrentals.com. Convenient, professional and inexpensive car rental service. For example, daily rate for a Toyota Yaris is $27, plus insurance. Remember, Jamaicans drive on the left side of the road.

STAYING THERE

Strawberry Fields Together: Off the North Coast Highway in Robin’s Bay, 876-994-0135 or 876-999-7169, strawberryfieldstogether.com/home.aspx#. Secluded cottages and villas with a private beach and on-site dining. Rates from $90, plus $27.50 for Jamaican breakfast and dinner, or $35 for three meals. As part of the owners’ Village Inclusive Plan, guests can visit a local school and explore the coast and mountains by ATV or horse, among other tours.

Zion Country Beach Cabins: Long Road, Portland Parish, 876-993-0435 or 876-451-1737, www.zioncountry.com. Four charmingly rustic cabins set among tropical plants and steps from the water, where manatees live. Doubles cost $50 and include breakfast. Drinks and dinner (fish, chicken or vegetarian) also available for $7-$8. Ask Free-I, the Dutch owner, for bar and restaurant suggestions, as well as information on climbing nearby Reach Falls.

Polkerris: 13 Corniche Road, Montego Bay, 305-722-3567 or 876-877-7784, www.polvista.com. An elegant yet homey B&B overlooking the Caribbean and up the hill from Montego Bay’s Hip Strip. Doubles cost $110, including a lavish breakfast.

WHERE TO EAT

Reggae Pot Rastarant: 86 Main St., Ocho Rios, 876-422-4696. Sample the Rastafarian cuisine called Ital, such as stew, rice and peas, and healthy juice drinks. Plates cost less than $4.

Mama Joice Cook Shop: Long Road, Portland Parish. Mama Joice prepares home-cooked Jamaican cuisine in her simple restaurant (four walls, no art). Dinner comes with very lively conversation from the chef. About $4.

WHAT TO DO

Green Castle Estate: Tower Road, Robin’s Bay, 612-986-4709, www.gcjamaica.com. Tour the country’s largest organic farm and learn about coconut oil production, allspice berries and the history of the estate. $20.

Port Antonio Market: The sprawling market in the center of town is crammed with produce, clothes, souvenirs, spices and crafts, such as woodcarvings by artist Rock Bottom.

Meet the People: The tourist board matches visitors with locals who share similar interests. Free. Fill out a request form at www.visitjamaica.com/about-jamaica/meet-people-programme.aspx?termsmeet*+the*+people*.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Jamaica Tourist Board: 1-800-233-4582, www.visitjamaica.com.

Up close and personal in Kathi Cooke unhinged the gate to her house in Montego Bay and opened her arms. I strode into her embrace and then into her home. As the evening darkened, we gabbed away on her silky red couch, about gardening, dogs, community service, baking, work life and dating in Jamaica. Cooke served banana chips and a juice-and-ginger-ale cocktail that smelled of the tropics. She showed me family portraits, then took some photos of us to add to the shelf. Finally, I stood up to go.

“If you have time tomorrow, maybe you can come over and hang out?” she asked as we swapped e-mail addresses and phone numbers in her kitchen. Our visit had lasted little more than an hour, yet so much had changed: I had arrived a stranger but was departing a friend.

Cooke, new pal to many, is one of about 300 ambassadors who volunteer with the Jamaica Tourist Board’s Meet the People program. Launched nearly 41 years ago, it arranges platonic dates between visitors and island residents, basing the matches on shared occupations and interests, though an eagerness to make an acquaintance can be enough of a commonality.

“It’s so great to meet new people and share Jamaica,” said the 44-year-old Cooke, who works for the electric company and emits her own high wattage. “I find that when you travel, making friends adds to the experience.”

On my two previous visits to the Caribbean island, I had been no recluse. But I had been a shut-in. The all-inclusive resorts where most Americans stay encourage guests to remain on the property, shielded behind the guarded gate. If you wish to leave, you sign up for a tour, a bubble-wrapped view of the country. Most interactions are with your poolside neighbors, some of whom may share your area code.

But this time, it was going to be different. No fortress-style resorts; instead, I would overnight at low-key lodgings that were fully integrated into the community. No group shuttles; I would drive myself, so I could stop on a whim and lean on locals for directions and suggestions.

And finally, no other American tourists-in-exile. Inspired by Jamaica’s motto – “Out of many, one people” – I was set to meet the many.

STRUGGLING SCHOOLS

Kids act the same everywhere: They stare, they swarm and they goof around, including vogueing for strangers’ cameras. Once out of the classroom, the children of Robin’s Bay Primary School were no different.

Before I was introduced to the students, though, I met with Merlene Anderson, a 30-year teacher who maintains an air of insouciance even in the face of a student meltdown. “I’m not running after him,” she said as a sobbing boy streaked across the front yard toward the main road. “He has to come back himself.”

Anderson softened when she spoke of the hardships of the school, a simple concrete structure that squeezes in six grades for about 80 children ages 6 to 12. Set on a ridge overlooking the shimmering Caribbean Sea, the school receives the equivalent of about $114 from the government for each three-month term to purchase educational materials and lunch foods, and to pay the cook. But the money usually runs out before the term is over. To supplement its resources, the school asks for donations. Anderson handed me a two-page printout of needed items that included dictionaries, fans, eggs and a PA system. She later added stuffed animals to the list.

In the classroom, 27 children dressed in crisp khaki (boys) and navy blue (girls) were shoehorned into desks that left little room for wiggling. I stood before the hushed students with Kim Chase, an expat from Pittsburgh who runs Strawberry Fields Together, a full-service lodging up the road, and arranges visits to the school.

Chase and her Jamaican fiance, Everton McKenzie, created the Village Inclusive Plan, which encourages guests to interact with the community and the environment; I learned of their immersion program through their Web site.

Lunch at the school is prepared in a building that resembles a stripped-down drive-through. On the day’s menu: rice and peas and chicken. Beverages are not included. “We can’t afford it,” Anderson said. “The cook sells drinks.” There is also tap water from an outdoor sink.

Most of the residents of Robin’s Bay, in a rural portion of the northeast, work as farmers and fishermen. But Anderson said that past graduates of her school have become lawyers, doctors, nurses, police officers and teachers. Among this year’s class, I met a potential pilot, veterinarian and soldier. But for that day, they were just kids, horsing around beneath a big blue sky.

RASTAFARIAN CUISINE

Jamaica claims to have the world’s highest number of churches per capita, but one minority religion – Rastafarianism – stands out among the other denominations. The dreadlocks and wafting scent of ganja definitely draw attention.

However, when I met Donovan Slythe, chef-owner of the Reggae Pot Rastarant in Ocho Rios, he smelled of kitchen and was wearing a cap. The tourism office directed me to this tucked-away eatery.

The 40-year-old Rastafarian prepares Ital food, the vegetarian cuisine rooted in the religion’s beliefs.

“Eating healthy is a way of life. Your food should be your medicine, and your medicine should be your food,” said Slythe, who learned to cook from his mother. “We need to eat healthy to create a healthier nation and a well-being of people.”

At an outdoor table on the edge of a parking lot, Slythe placed before me a plate buckling under the weight of cubed tofu, a gluey brown stew and a mound of rice and peas (actually kidney beans). For a beverage, he presented a plastic cup of cherry juice (good source of vitamin C) and Irish moss (a seaweed with the same nutritional benefits as fish). Under his watchful eye, I dug into my meal for mankind.

Brother Lion, also a Rastafarian, espoused nourishment as well, though his version was more akin to impromptu raw food. Swaddling his feet in brown fabric, he shimmied up a tree trunk and grabbed a handful of coconuts. On the ground, he cracked them open and passed around the milk and white meat.

Lion was my escort to Reach Falls in Portland Parish, a Slinky of cascading water without the pedestrian traffic jams of Dunns River Falls, the grossly popular waterfall that attracts crowds from resorts and cruise ships. The government recently took over management of the attraction, setting up rules – such as no diving into the main pool – and charging admission. But rogue guides such as Lion lead guests on a back route along a banana trail that wends toward the falls.

As Lion and I picked our way around rocks and roots, he described his life in the hills, a private temple of his own.

“The environment makes me strong,” he said. “It’s like a fullness. There’s a better vibe in the mountains.” He inhabits a wooden shanty and finds sustenance outside his front door.

CRAFTY CARVER

Rock Bottom inhabits a makeshift studio and gallery in the Port Antonio market, wedged between T-shirt stalls, racks of made-in-China shoes and tables laden with fruits and vegetables. The woodcarver is a large man with a protruding Buddha belly, arms as thick as a football player’s and a bald head that could probably reflect the sun. He’s hard to miss, and yet I missed him.

Free-I – the Dutch proprietor of Zion Country Beach Cabins in Portland Parish, where I stayed for a night – had recommended Rock Bottom, whose work he admired, and had sketched out a map of his location. But once inside the whirlwind space, I became distracted by the cacophony of commerce.

Women called out, inviting me to peruse their wares. (I fell for a bag of allspice.) A Rastafarian named Bobo showed off his creations, a macrame bikini that would unravel with the first wave and a teeny skirt the size of a tube top. Nearby, a spiffed-up man was selling touristy trinkets but was secretly shopping as well. “Wife Wanted,” read his hand-inked sign. Mr. T-Shirt King was looking for a Mrs. T-Shirt Queen.

After a few circles around the market, I finally found the artist chipping away at a face of a Rasta man. He greeted me with a one-potato-two-potato, thumb-rub move, saying “peace, love, unity and respect” with each gesture. Pleasantries over, he plunged into his story.

In his early 20s, Rock Bottom had been a diver, catching fish and conchs that he would sell on the pier. He also bought up carved works that he would resell. But a dearth of supply forced him to cut himself out as the middleman and take up the craft.

“I would watch the other guys carve and study them,” said the 52-year-old, who’s been selling his works here since the market opened more than 20 years ago. “The first thing I made encouraged me to go deeper and deeper and advance with my own designs.”

He still remembers his first sale: It was of a Rastafarian man, similar to the one he was carving the day I met him. It takes him about a day and a half to design, sand and paint the artwork, which he sells for $23. His collection covers a series of walls and tables and features turtles, birds, Arawak Indians, Bob Marley and Maroons, the runaway slaves of Jamaica.

“Carving originated in Africa, and we are African Jamaican,” he said beneath the image of a glowering Indian chief. “It tells our history.”

SOUNDS OF THE ISLAND

Jamaica never goes silent. Early in the morning in Portland Parish, the children of Long Road Community waited for the school bus to the accompaniment of Bob Marley. During a hot afternoon in Robin’s Bay, Dolly Williams belted out traditional songs about mangos and men who call girls sweetie pie. In Montego Bay, Kathi Cooke listened to Dance Hall artists Spice and Pamputtae sound off about slim versus fluffy girls. And on the shaded porch of the Polkerris hotel, above the racket of Montego Bay’s Hip Strip, Hedley Jones harmonized the history of Jamaican music.

“When I was 5, 6, 7, I used to listen to musicians who played for the neighbors,” said the spirited 92-year-old. “I knew songs like, ‘Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today.’”

Jones, whom I arranged to meet through the tourism board, is a musical polyglot who started off on banjo before moving on to bass and guitar. Dressed head to toe in khaki, he dug deep into his bag of memories, pulling out stories from the 1930s and ’40s, when he performed in the big city, leading the Hedley Jones Sextet.

“Kingston was alive with music in those days,” he said. “There were at least 30 nightclubs and six or seven large bands.”

When music styles changed, Jones evolved with them. “I played all of the genres: blues, jazz, mento, calypso … reggae.” But he was not just a follower of fads; he was also an innovator and inventor. He explained, for example, how he built the first wooden electric guitar, showing as proof a newspaper clipping that dates his achievement to 1940, seven years before Les Paul and his Gibson. In 1951, after Hurricane Charlie cut off the electricity for four months, Jones and his cousin built Kingston’s first traffic lights.

REACHING OUT

On the plane ride home after my Jamaican people-meeting adventure, I sat near a couple from upstate New York who had stayed at an all-inclusive. They grimaced as they recalled their claustrophobic experience at the resort. Sympathetic to their reaction, I told them that for their next trip, I knew a few Jamaicans they could meet. And I’d be happy to make the introductions.

More ways to mingle To really enrich your Caribbean vacation, you need to meet the people, not the American tourist at the resort bar. Here are some programs that bring visitors and locals together in a variety of settings.

BAHAMAS

People to People: 1-800-BAHAMAS, www.nassauparadiseisland.com

This Nassau/Paradise Island program connects visitors with volunteer hosts. Sample activities include sharing a home-cooked meal and meeting Bahamian children. Cost: $35.

GRENADA

Homestays Grenada: 1-473-444-5845, www.homestaysgrenada.com

Opens the doors of locals’ homes across the island, as well as on the sister islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique. Rates start at $30 a night.

ST. MARTIN

Guest Enrichment Program at the Radisson St. Martin Resort, Marina and Spa: 1-800-333-3333, www.radisson.com/stmartin

Lets visitors embrace the French island’s culture and people through such activities as a history lesson and French language instruction by locals. Most of the programs are free, but are for guests only. For a schedule, go to www.chwcms.com/rad/images/hotels/MARTIN/guestenrichm.pdf.

ARUBA

EMBRACE Project at the Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort & Casino: 011-297-586-1234, aruba.hyatt.com

Guests can make friends while doing some good. The volunteer program launched in May with the cleanup of the Bushiribana gold smelter ruins; the second session was in August at the Balashi gold mine ruins. During the excursion, a local is on-site to teach the volunteers about the history and importance of the landmark. The program will continue through 2010, with sessions scheduled once a quarter. Open only to guests.

BELIZE

Maya Village Homestay program: 011-501-722-2470, www.travelbelize.org or www.toucantrail.com/Maya-Village-Homestay-Network.html

Offers the opportunity to live with a Maya family and learn the customs of the ancient culture, such as harvesting corn, making tortillas and doing laundry in the creek. More than 20 families scattered around three villages near Punta Gorda, in Belize’s southern region, participate in the program. Cost: $6 per day, plus tax, in addition to a one-time $5 registration fee and $2 coordination fee.