NASSAU, Bahamas--If we asked you what 2016’s biggest Instagram travel trend was, what would you say? Smug shots of frosé (that’s frozen rose wine)? – “It’s okay here I suppose” –sunset humblebrags? No: it’s the swimming pigs that live in the Bahamas.
Everyone from Amy Schumer to Jennifer Lawrence and Johnny Depp have visited the remote island in the Exumas, where the now Insta-famous pigs spend their days swimming in the clear, warm Caribbean sea and waiting for their celebrity fans to visit. Their fame even means they’ve graduated from social media to music videos – appearing in Pitbull’s video for Timber – so basically: we give it a year until these fame-hungry pigs are on Celebrity Big Brother.
But it’s not just rich celebs: you can visit too, and travel to Nassau in the Bahamas – from where you can take a two-hour boat ride to where the Insta-stars live on their own private paradise island at Big Major Cay – for the trip of a lifetime to swim with the wild pigs, all to celebrate the release of Angry Birds: The Movie on DVD (the pigs in the film have their own island – see?)
How the pigs got to the islands is a hotly contested question: there are stories about everything from a shipwreck that marooned a pair of pigs on the island to escaped farm animals, but the truth is actually a bit more boring: the Bahamian National Trust tells us that the owner of the island just wanted to farm pork without building fences.
Even if you’re not Johnny Depp – who bought his own private island, called Little Halls Pond Cay, in the Bahamas after falling in love with the area while filming Pirates of the Caribbean in 2004 – you can visit the pigs. A day’s boat trip to the Exumas, leaving from Nassau and including a visit to Pig Island, feeding iguanas on their own private island, lunch and the chance to swim with nurse sharks was 300 British pounds, and yes, we know it’s a “trotter” money (groan), but it’s a once in a lifetime experience. You can go with Exuma Escapes
exumaescapes.com , who even provide carrots to feed your new porky friends. Beware: phone covers can get mistaken for food, so be careful when you’re trying to get a swine selfie. (Reproduced from heatone.com) ~ Caribbean360 ~
