OK, there may have been a moment of panic as I steered the white rental car out of the parking lot on Anguilla, part of the British West Indies. I have plenty of experience behind the wheel in countries whose British heritage compels folks to drive on the left side of the road, and I've been fine. My basic rule of conversion: The driver is on the side of the vehicle nearest the center of the road. But this car's steering wheel was on the left side, which meant I was driving on the shoulder side.

But instead of an angry horn from the oncoming car I'd suddenly put in danger of a head-on collision, the driver simply pulled to his left and waved me by with a genial, understanding smile.

In Anguilla, they do things differently. First, it's pronounced, "An gwill a," not "An gwee a." Its name is derived from the French or Spanish word for "eel" -- an apt description for this narrow, 16-mile-long, sand-fringed spit of limestone and sand that squirms its way along the Caribbean's northeastern shoulder.

Maintaining a low profile

Although Anguilla lies only a few miles north of the spine of old volcanoes that is St. Maarten, this most northerly of the Leeward Islands maintains a low profile, nowhere rising higher than 215 feet above the azure seas around it.

Somewhat arid and not particularly fertile, scrubby with no forests or natural resources to exploit, the island was of no interest to early Spanish explorers. An English settlement was established in 1650, and despite being ravaged several times over the next three centuries by various calamities, the island remained a British colony, albeit one relatively low on the scale of importance.

Because large plantations weren't practical, Anguilla never saw the mass importation of African slaves that populated bigger islands, and its residents eked out a subsistence fishing the abundant waters, harvesting salt or constructing colorful wooden boats. For much of the 20th century, the island's primary export was adult males, who sought work on other islands to supplement their families at home. Forty years ago, the island's total population had fallen to 4,000. All the island had was abundant sun, sand and sea, but those were to become valuable assets.

In 1980, after a decade's struggle to establish some sovereignty over their own island, Anguillans took control of their destiny. While remaining a British overseas territory, islanders established rules on how its beachfront assets could be developed, with a strong emphasis on privately funded, locally involved projects.

Since then, they have transformed their island from an obscure backwater of the British empire into an up-and-coming upscale vacation haven. Although British in tradition and politics, Anguilla uses the dollar and 90 percent of its visitors come from North America.

Much of the major tourism investment has been channeled in ways that provide both meaningful work for islanders and a revenue stream for the government. The strategy seems to be creating a higher standard of living, and the population has risen to 12,000.

Perhaps more remarkable, they've accomplished this without sacrificing their integrity or being overrun by mass tourism.

The island has no major tourist sites. Its national museum is in a restored cottage, and there's only a scattering of tiny art galleries. There are no casinos, shopping malls, fast-food outlets, brand-name chain resorts or big hotels. In fact, the largest hotel on the island has fewer than 100 rooms. And it's all decidedly low-rise; the island has hardly any elevators.

Miles of beautiful beaches

What Anguilla does offer in abundance, in addition to many miles of beautiful sand beaches and a breezy subtropical climate year round, is a casual Caribbean kind of exclusivity.

It boasts a surprisingly abundant menu of excellent, often-homegrown dining opportunities and a proliferation of unique accommodation options that range from the impossibly palatial to the merely superb.

For the adventurous, there's plenty of snorkeling and scuba diving, with interesting wrecks on the island's various shoals and reefs, as well as saltwater fishing and wind-surfing.

Other than figuring out which side of the road to drive on, navigating the island proved a breeze. There's only one main road, which traces the ridge along the island's western end and makes a loop around its wider eastern end. Almost every other lane that leads off this two-lane asphalt ribbon meanders down through scrubby expanses to a magnificent beach.

In fact, the island's 35 square miles are fringed by 33 named beaches, several more than a mile long. We visited a dozen of them in our five days, and although all were open to the public, only one would be classified as anything but deserted. Even that one qualified as barely busy.

It's easy to get the illusion that you have all that beautiful sand to yourself.