If you like hiking this is not the island for you, if you like greenery this is not the island for you. But if you want a hotel holiday on the beach you will love it. Barbados is a small flat island surrounded by beautiful beaches and tourist resorts. Apparently there are a huge number of beauty spots famous for celebrity weddings and many of the celebs also have houses on the beach (I can’t tell you who, I wasn’t remotely interested).
I visited Barbados as part of my cruise around the Caribean but it was far from my favourite island. For a resort holiday on the beach it seems lovely but I found places I hugely preferred for that and I doubt i would go back to Barbados any time soon.
Basic Travel Information
- Location: Windward Islands
- Status: Independent Country
- Languages: Creole (French Patois), English
- Currency: East Caribbean Dollar, US Dollar widely accepted
- Route there: Flights only
- Recommended: Meh, far too touristy
My Story
I didn’t see a huge amount of Barbados due to the excursion that I had chosen to do here. I picked a catamaran trip that included a stop at Turtle beach, a part of the coastline famous for crystal clear water and huge numbers of turtles in residence. This meant that I only really saw the beaches along the west coast that the boat sailed past but that was more than enough to convince me that this is a beautiful island to visit for a beach resort type of holiday.
My day started poorly due to a truly ridiculous hangover following one of the heaviest nights of drinking of my entire cruise. Having just about dragged myself out of bed in time to get down to meet the excursion some lovely sympathetic people gave me water when I needed it and left me to my misery. Being hungover on a small boat in choppy water is deeply unpleasant and I didn’t fully recover until jumping straight over the side at the first snorkelling location.
Sadly, my recovery meant I could fully appreciate the disappointment of Turtle beach. I’m sure its amazing most of the time but we had zero visibility in the cloudy water due to the turbulent seas on that day. With 50 tourists attempting to snorkel, see turtles, stay near the guide with the bait and not kick anyone it was awful and I got out to chill on the boat pretty quickly.
Having revived considerably I had a great time chatting to the other people on the catamaran then enjoyed the second snorkelling spot considerably more. The water was much clearer and while there weren’t any turtles there were huge numbers of fish around.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the sun, either on the front of the catamaran or on the beautiful beaches that we stopped at. Excellent food, plenty of beer, limited rum punch due to still being fragile from the previous night, it was a great afternoon. We came back into port, all a bit drunk and dancing to YMCA in an insanely cheesy but hilarious, nonetheless.
I don’t think I am likely to go back to Barbados. There are other islands with just as nice beaches such as Aruba and Anguilla that were much more peaceful for that kind of holiday.
Brief History
I was completely unaware of any of the history of the Caribbean Islands when I visited. While travelling around and writing these articles I became curious and decided to include a brief history of each. I hope you find it interesting.
Historically the island was inhabited by the Kalinago people before being claimed and abandoned by both the Spanish and Portuguese then fully colonised by the English in 1627. The island was a hub of sugar plantation slavery and in 1700 there were 30,000 slaves out of 45,000 people on the island. Even when slavery was abolished in 1834 conditions for Afro-Barbadians didn’t have any say until the 1930s. Barbados became an independent country in 1966.
Now Barbados has a diverse economy although tourism is still the largest sector. It also has one of the highest literacy rates in the world with very nearly 100%.
Places Nearby & Trip Planning
Barbados is not connected to any other Caribbean boats by ferry so unless you get lucky with a local or cargo vessel you are limited to expensive flights to elsewhere in the Caribbean. But if you can take short flights the nearby islands are worth exploring:
Also see my main article: Travelling in the Caribbean
When to Visit
High season is December – April and Barbados is much busier and dramatically more expensive in this period. It is also hotter and drier at this time of year.
The hurricane system is between June and October with the highest risk in September.
The island is extremely hot all year, bring sunscreen but also make sure you have your raincoat on you at all times as you can never predict when a heavy rain shower will sweep over you.
Further Information
These websites were my favourite sources of general information for this location:
Last Updated: May 2020
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