Bermuda is a difficult place to get a fix on, even after numerous visits. There is an ephemeral, cotton-candy element to the island with its candy-pink veneer, so ubiquitous on buses, cottages, and hibiscus blooms. Bermudians themselves struggle to describe the essence of their 21-square-mile home or their national character, if there can be such generalizations. But for Bermuda’s visitors, such ambiguities are all part of the island’s allure. Its fast-forward economic buzz — thanks to big business — provides an anachronistic clash with its physical self, a laid-back Xanadu that hasn’t changed much since wintering tourists like Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe, and Mark Twain found creative inspiration in the island’s peaceful pace. Bermuda encompasses two islands: Life can be frantic for those who actually live here — and work hard to pay for it — but for the visitor, a holiday can be utterly stress-free, sampling Azorean donuts and wool sweaters, meandering by scooter along oleander-carpeted lanes. Its people, too, can seem like a throwback to a gentler time. Bermudians say “Good Morning!” when passing on the street and are actually offended if you don’t reply in kind.

Bermuda’s intriguing qualities are best unraveled slowly, like the layers of its namesake onion. The island once exported the fragrant bulb by the thousands to winter markets of New York and other American cities, installing it so strongly in the public imagination that Bermudians describe each other as “Onions” as a token of utmost respect. The island has very few tangible exports these days, aside from the rum cakes, linen shorts, and duty-free six-packs of dark ’n’ stormies carried home by travelers — and most of those items aren’t even manufactured in Bermuda. Rather, the island sells its natural attributes — to travelers — and its offshore jurisdiction — to international businesses.

To the first-time visitor, a few myths should be dispelled. Subtropical Bermuda is not part of the Caribbean — that island group lies more than 1,000 miles to the south. Bermuda had no indigenous people. Slavery instituted by the first English settlers forms a painful, 200-year legacy that continues to feed subtle racial bitterness and misunderstanding in a country with a 60 percent black population but a mostly white economic powerbase. A British Overseas Territory, in the term coined for today’s remaining colonies, Bermuda is neither very British nor wholly North American, but rather a complex mixture of the two — with a large dose of easygoing island cool thrown in. Bermudians may fly the Union Jack and sing “God Save the Queen” as protocol requires at official occasions, but they certainly do not interrupt their workday for scones and clotted cream. And while islanders watch Oprah religiously, run office pools for NFL games, and visit family and friends in U.S. cities several times a year, they remain entirely skeptical of a wholesale American cultural invasion.

From the moment you touch down or sail in over aquamarine reefs to its green shore, Bermuda will seduce you as the brochures promise, even if its treasures are revealed somewhat coyly. The island caters to a mixed crowd of travelers these days. While most come for beaches — and a Hamilton shopping excursion thrown in — more and more are flocking for spa weekends, golf holidays, cultural attractions, eco-tours, and a growing slate of special sports events and international festivals. Music, food and film festivals, kite-surfing, deep-sea fishing, scuba-diving, art classes, and tours of bio-diverse natural parks, both marine and terrestrial, are among the varied menu of offerings on this most northerly of coral archipelagos. Honeymooners, hikers, artists, sports aficionados, even shop-a-holics — though, it must be said, those with ample wallets — will find plenty to see and do year-round, not to mention a delightfully different island to explore at various seasons.

Many of the island’s best hotel properties have spent the past few years pouring money back into renovations and updates — sometimes forced to do so through necessity after hurricanes, but also to please sophisticated travelers accustomed to Manhattan boutique hotels or London spas. The island’s tourism industry has had to become more competitive to survive the onslaught of far cheaper resorts with better climates, and that has only benefited visitors to Bermuda. UNESCO’s World Heritage Site at St. George is busy preserving living history. Hamilton envisions a major waterfront facelift, complete with boardwalks and added parklands. And cultural tourism initiatives are forging ahead with programs to fix up historic forts, open new museums, and launch the kinds of grassroots tours that allow outsiders to truly experience a place. Notably, the island’s black community is developing the underexposed story of its people and traditions, with an African Diaspora Trail that details the heroes and struggles of slavery, emancipation, and the modern black experience.

Bermuda’s quirkiness — comprising a curious mixed bag of 21st-century cutting-edge commerce and sea-hewn fables — manages to enchant newcomers and hold tight to those who return again and again and again. It is a miniscule, blindingly beautiful, quirky gem of a destination — so close to the Real World, yet in mindset, so seemingly far away. “I think I could live here always and be contented,” Mark Twain said during a March 1910 visit. “You go to heaven if you want to — I’d rather stay here.”