NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Actor Johnny Depp bought a rugged private island ringed with white sand off Exuma. Musician Lenny Kravitz snapped up a speck of land in the Eleuthera chain. Sean Connery is ensconced behind high walls on the western tip of New Providence.The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands strewn across the western Atlantic Ocean, is drawing celebrities seeking sun and a culture that discourages celebrity worship, allowing them to largely avoid autograph seekers while remaining within easy reach of the United States.

“People are happy to meet you, but they don’t want to exploit you or want anything from you,” actor Nicolas Cage, who owns a home near the capital, Nassau, and an island off Exuma, told The Associated Press. “It’s nice to be able to ... take a walk on the beach and not have to worry about having your picture taken.”

Offering favourable tax and residency laws, the government of the former British colony is encouraging the wealthy to come and take a look.

Any foreigner who purchases a home worth at least $500,000 can become eligible for permanent residency — an incentive for jet-setters seeking to come and go with minimum hassle. Another inducement is that the Bahamas has no tax on income, capital gains or inheritances.

Other stars who own Bahamas getaways include Shakira, Michael Jordan, John Travolta, David Copperfield, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Sean (Diddy) Combs and former tennis great Jim Courier.

The interest of celebrities has boosted already high real estate prices in a country where home prices are largely out of reach of locals and has prompted fears of overdevelopment.

The publicity that comes with being home to the famous can sometimes be a negative — as Bahamians learned last year when reality star and former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith took up residence in Nassau.

Smith says she came to seek privacy during her pregnancy, but the death of her 20-year-old son under mysterious circumstances at her hospital bedside sparked a political scandal and brought negative publicity. Opposition lawmakers accused the government of showing favouritism to Smith by quickly scheduling an inquest into the death and expediting her application for permanent residency. She also got into a dispute over ownership of a seaside mansion.

Most celebrities, however, lead quiet lives here.

Depp discovered the idyllic islands while filming parts of “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy on the island chain. In 2004, he bought Little Hall’s Pond Cay, a deserted 36-acre spit of land with six beaches, listed at $3.5 million, where he planned to build a small home with minimal environmental impact, according to a local conservation group.

Kravitz, who has Bahamian roots from his mother, was a frequent visitor before he bought his own tiny island in the Eleuthera chain known for its barrier reefs and slow pace of development. And Connery, a long-time resident, lives in a single-story home overlooking a golf course on the most populated island in the country.

At the third annual Bahamas International Film Festival last month, Cage said he hopes to recruit more Hollywood figures to get involved with the event. If some decide to buy property in the islands, the government would be glad to accommodate them. “It definitely increases our cachet when well-known celebrities choose the Bahamas as their home or to invest in,” said Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe. “They bring their friends down, they talk about what they’ve discovered — and what you find is others decide to check it out as well.”