St Vincent and the Grenadines discovery guide

St Vincent and the Grenadines is one volcanic island with a trailing chain of about thirty small ones, and the appeal is almost entirely the chain. The Tobago Cays are the highlight: five uninhabited islets inside a horseshoe reef, protected as a marine park, with turtles grazing the seagrass and nothing built on them at all. Bequia is the most characterful of the inhabited islands, with a working harbour and a boatbuilding tradition; Mustique is the private one, Mayreau and Union Island the quiet ones.

The main travel issue

The good window is also the expensive one -- December to May is dry, breezy and clear, and priced accordingly, while June to November carries the hurricane risk -- and that nothing here is reachable by road.

The solution

Plan around the ferries, which run from Kingstown to Bequia several times daily in about an hour, and reach the Cays by day boat or charter rather than expecting to stay there.

December to May is the dry season and the best window: warm, breezy, low humidity and reliable sunshine, with the clearest water for diving and snorkelling. It is the high season and prices reflect it.

Sailing is the reason many people come, and the season runs roughly December to May when the trades are steady. The Bequia Easter Regatta is the fixture of the year.

June to November is wetter, hotter and more humid, with the hurricane risk peaking from August to October. Prices fall considerably and some businesses close.

Vincy Mas, the carnival, runs in late June and early July on the main island and is the biggest event in the national calendar.

Sargassum seaweed can affect Atlantic-facing shores, mainly between March and August, and varies year to year.

The Tobago Cays

Five uninhabited islets behind Horseshoe Reef, a marine park with moorings, green turtles in the seagrass and some of the best snorkelling in the eastern Caribbean. Reached by day boat from Union Island or Mayreau, or by yacht. Bring everything; there is nothing there but a ranger and sometimes a barbecue boat.

Bequia

An hour by ferry from Kingstown. Admiralty Bay full of anchored yachts, the walk along the Belmont boardwalk to Princess Margaret Beach, model boatbuilding workshops, and a turtle sanctuary at Park. The most rewarding base in the country for most visitors.

Sailing the chain

The Grenadines are among the world’s great cruising grounds: short hops, steady trades, and anchorages at Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Mayreau, Union Island and the Cays. Bareboat and crewed charters run from St Vincent and from Grenada to the south.

St Vincent itself

Overlooked and worth two or three days. The botanic gardens at Kingstown, founded in 1765 and the oldest in the western hemisphere, with a breadfruit tree descended from the one Captain Bligh finally delivered. Black-sand beaches, the Falls of Baleine by boat, and the Vermont Nature Trail for the endemic St Vincent parrot.

La Soufriere

A demanding walk up an active volcano that erupted explosively in April 2021. Take a guide and check current access.

A small Caribbean nation of around 110,000 people, overwhelmingly of African descent, with a history of unusually fierce resistance to colonisation.

The Garifuna

St Vincent’s defining history. Shipwrecked and escaped Africans mixed with the indigenous Kalinago to form the Garifuna, or Black Caribs, who held the island against European settlement far longer than anywhere else in the Lesser Antilles. After the Second Carib War the British deported some five thousand of them in 1797 to an island off Honduras; their descendants live along the Central American coast today, and Garifuna language and music are UNESCO-listed. A small community remains in north-eastern St Vincent.

Boats

Bequia has a boatbuilding tradition of real depth, producing double-ended whaleboats and the model boats still made in the island’s workshops, and a whaling licence granted as aboriginal subsistence.

Two economies

Mustique and the private islands are a world apart from the rest of the country, and the contrast is openly discussed.

Church and cricket

Anglican and Methodist traditions are strong, Sunday is observed, and cricket is followed as a West Indian rather than a national concern.

Vincy Mas

Carnival in early July, with calypso, soca and mas bands.

This is a small country with a fragile economy, and the difference between a yacht provisioned abroad and one spending locally is substantial.

The Tobago Cays Marine Park is the thing most at risk. Anchoring on coral is prohibited — use the moorings — and so is touching or riding the turtles, which is enforced by rangers and still attempted by visitors. Pay the park fee without complaint; it funds the protection.

Reefs across the Grenadines have suffered bleaching and hurricane damage. Reef-safe sunscreen, no touching, no standing.

Spend on the inhabited islands. Bequia, Union Island and Mayreau have small guesthouses, boat operators and restaurants where the money stays. The main island of St Vincent sees very few visitors and wants them.

Whaling: Bequia retains a small aboriginal subsistence quota, which is contentious. It is not a spectacle and should not be sought out as one.

Water is limited on the smaller islands and largely comes from rain catchment.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the country

The gap between the two ends here is unusually wide: a guesthouse on St Vincent and a villa on Mustique are barely the same country.