The Pitons are the easy part. Getting to them is the decision.
Which of the two airports your flight actually lands at, and what the drive north costs. Whether the peaks are better from a boat or from the road. What the mud at Sulphur Springs is really like. Reviews of every tour you can book in St Lucia.
The boat day, the volcano, the rainforest and the airport run.
The four days a first trip here gets built around, priced, with the verdict on each.
01The west coast dayPrivate Full Day Charter: St Lucia Boat Tour to SoufriereSoufrière and back with both peaks off the bow, a snorkel stop and lunch on board.
02The drive-in volcanoSoufriere Volcano ExperienceYou park inside a collapsed crater at Sulphur Springs, walk to the vents, then get into the mud.
03The green halfRainforest Hike and Waterfall SafariWaterfall, rainforest trail and a swim, an hour inland from either coast.
04The airport runPrivate Airport & Hotel TransfersHewanorra is ninety minutes from the northern hotels. Settle the car before you land.
North for the beaches, south for the Pitons.
You can cross this island in two hours and nobody does it twice in a day. Four places to sleep, and the day out that each one is actually good for.
The peaks, the springs and the falls sit within four miles of each other.
Gros Piton and Petit Piton come straight out of the sea with no foothills to soften them. Behind the town the road runs into an old collapsed crater you can drive into, and the water coming off it is hot enough to sit in. Everything south of Canaries is a day trip built out of those two facts.
Two airports, ninety minutes apart. Know which one you are flying into.
Almost every long-haul flight lands at Hewanorra (UVF) in the far south, and almost every hotel is in the north. In between is an hour and a half of coast road. The short runway at George F. L. Charles (SLU) is the other one, ten minutes out of Castries, and it only takes regional flights.
From Rodney Bay down to the Pitons, the fast way is by hull.
The leeward coast is flat water and the Atlantic side is not, so the boats all run the same way: south past Marigot Bay, a snorkel stop off Anse Chastanet, lunch under the peaks, back before the afternoon rain.
What a day out in St Lucia actually costs.
Three price bands, and the gap between a shared shuttle and a private catamaran is most of what sits between them.
Shared shuttles, the springs and the falls, a walk round the market or the fort.
The standards: a seat on the catamaran, the volcano-and-waterfall run, a zipline morning.
- 1Land and Sea Tourfrom $115
- 2ATV Tour in St Luciafrom $107
- 3Customize Private Island Tourfrom $130
Private boats, a car and driver for the whole day, and the charters worth the money.
Three things St Lucia has and the islands either side of it do not.
Beaches and rum are the Caribbean baseline. A crater you drive into, cocoa you grind yourself and a beach ride on the Atlantic coast are not.
The Sulphur Springs
The 1766 eruption blew the side out of the crater, so the road goes in where the wall used to be and stops at a car park among the vents. The ground steams, the smell is serious, and downhill from it the run-off collects in shallow pools at about forty degrees. The mud on the bottom is the point: you coat yourself in it, let it dry grey, then rinse it off under the falls below.
- 1Diamond Mineral and Mud Baths Plus Waterfall Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 589 reviews
- 2Soufriere Volcano Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 486 reviews
- 3Sulphur Springs Rejuvenating Mud Bath Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 320 reviews
The estates above Soufrière
Cocoa has been grown on these slopes since the French, and the estates above the town still work: pods split by hand, beans fermented in wooden boxes, dried on sliding trays that get pushed under cover when the rain comes. On the tour you grind your own and it tastes nothing like a bar. The distilleries are the other half of the same afternoon.
- 1Hot Chocolate Tours St. Lucia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 240 reviews
- 2Food and Rum Tour – Taste authentic St. Lucian Food and Culture★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 204 reviews
- 3Rum Tasting and Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 91 reviews
Riding at Cas en Bas
The windward coast is the half of the island the resorts skipped, and the rides run along it out of Cas en Bas: scrub, sea grape, then a long empty beach with the Atlantic actually breaking on it. Most stables finish by taking the horses into the water. It is the one place here where you get the ocean without a single hotel in the frame.
- 1Private Beach Horseback Ride with Sandy Hoofs St. Lucia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 356 reviews
- 2Nature & Historical Horseback Riding Tours St. Lucia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 54 reviews
- 3East Coast Horseback Riding & Waterfall Excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 39 reviews
The four you settle before the plane lands.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast. These four cannot: each one runs on somebody else’s timetable, and there is rarely a second slot the same day.
- 01Ferry Transfer from Hewanorra Airport to Saint Lucia ResortsHewanorra sits ninety minutes from the northern hotels. A car booked ahead is holding a sign when you walk out; one booked at arrivals is a queue and a haggle.
- 02Gros Piton Hike with Dannyboy & Co.Gros Piton is a guided climb only. The guides work in set groups out of the interpretive centre at Fond Gens Libre, and you go up when a group goes up.
- 03Full-Day Catamaran Sightseeing Cruise With SnorkelingThe west-coast catamarans run one sailing a morning and fill through the winter. Miss it and there is no second boat that day.
- 04Diamond Mineral and Mud Baths Plus Waterfall AdventureSulphur Springs shuts in the late afternoon, and the middle of the day belongs to the coaches down from the cruise berth. The early slot is a different place.
A St Lucian shower lasts twenty minutes. Book around it, not against it.
June to November the rain comes in the afternoon, hard and short, and the rainforest tracks turn to red clay under it. Staying in is the wrong answer. Being under a roof between two and four is the right one, and the island keeps its best indoor hours for exactly then.
Wherever you are staying
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