Two islands, twenty minutes apart.
Carnival, curry and the Northern Range on one. Reef, rainforest and empty sand on the other. What every tour costs, how long it runs, and which one to book first.
The tours worth planning a day around.
A reef you read through the floor of the boat, a sunset run into Caroni, doubles eaten standing up on Ariapita Avenue. Book these before the rest of the week takes shape.
The Grand Circle 12-Hour All-Inclusive Island Experience
A private 10 to 12 hour Tobago coast-to-coast adventure with waterfalls, forts, rainforest, beach time, snorkeling, and lunch for $400.
From $400 per person
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★ 5.0Books out by FridayBirdwatching, Waterfall, Rainforest and Island Nature ToursFrom $9070 reviews
★ 4.0Runs in the rainTobago Buccoo Reef Glass Bottom Boat TourFrom $7868 reviews
★ 4.5Worth the 6am pickupTrinidad Highlights and Scenic Drive TourFrom $10968 reviews
★ 4.5Shoes you can soakTrinidad Highlights Tour from Port of SpainFrom $8061 reviews
★ 4.5Ask any TriniMini Island Tour of TrinidadFrom $7647 reviews
★ 4.5Kids do fine on itTrinidad Island Circle Tour with PickupFrom $13539 reviews
Tobago fits into a day. Just.
Twenty minutes in the air out of Piarco and the pace drops by half. A full-island run takes in Buccoo Reef, the Nylon Pool sandbar, Fort King George above Scarborough and a late lunch at Castara before the light goes. One day is enough to see it. Two is enough to like it.
Trinidad or Tobago?
They share a flag and almost nothing else. One is loud, spiced and mountainous. The other is reef, rainforest and empty sand. Pick the island that sounds like your week, or take the short flight and have both.
Loud and spiced
Trinidad
from $109 · 68 reviews
Port of Spain runs on pan, doubles and traffic. Behind it the Northern Range drops straight into Maracas Bay, and the Caroni wetlands turn scarlet at dusk. Come for carnival season, for food you will still be thinking about in March, and for drives that change scenery every half hour.
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Reef and quiet
Tobago
from $400 · 341 reviews
Buccoo Reef with a glass floor over it, the waist-deep Nylon Pool out in open water, Englishman’s Bay with nobody else on it. Smaller, slower, built around the water, with the oldest protected rainforest in the hemisphere running down its spine. Come to swim and do very little.
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Feathers and forest
Both, for the wildlife
from $90 · 70 reviews
These islands sit close enough to Venezuela to borrow its birds: more than four hundred and fifty species across two small pieces of land. Scarlet ibis flying into Caroni at sunset on one, hummingbirds and the Main Ridge on the other. This is the trip birders plan a year ahead.
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Neither island switches off at six.
Paddle out over Bon Accord Lagoon on a moonless night and every stroke lights the water blue. Back on the big island the food only starts late: doubles from a roadside pan, bake and shark wrapped in paper, a pan side rehearsing under the streetlights until somebody gets it right.
Doubles first, questions later.
Breakfast is a paper bag of doubles from a roadside pan. Dinner might be bake and shark at Maracas or pholourie on Ariapita Avenue. These walks put you in front of the stalls locals queue at, at the hour they queue.
The floor of the boat is glass.
Buccoo Reef sits shallow enough to read from a flat-bottomed boat, and the Nylon Pool past it is a waist-deep sandbar in the middle of open sea. Half a morning, no swimming skill required, and still the thing most visitors rate highest in Tobago.
Every road inland ends at water.
Avocat comes off the Northern Range in one clean drop and you can stand underneath it. Argyle in Tobago stacks three tiers with a pool at each. The walks in are short, the roads to the trailheads are not, and both are at their loudest in the hour after rain.
Pick a coast, then pick a day.
Port of Spain for the pan yards and the food. Maracas for the drive over the mountain. Caroni for the ibis at dusk. Buccoo for the reef and the sandbar.
Straight to the kind of day you want.
Reef boats and bird hides, waterfall hikes and pan yards, long drives with lunch built into the price. Start with whichever one sounds like your kind of morning.
Over the mountain and back by dark.
Nothing here is more than a few hours away, and the road is usually the good part: the Saddle Road switchbacks down to Maracas, the cane flats running south to the Pitch Lake, the boat channel into Caroni at golden hour.
Three days, both islands.
You will not see all of Trinidad and Tobago in one trip, and you do not need to. This is the order that works: the capital, then the coast, then the flight east.
Day 1
Port of Spain on foot
Fort George for the view down the Gulf of Paria, the Magnificent Seven around the Savannah, then a pan yard once the heat drops and doubles on the walk back.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Over the Saddle Road
Maracas Bay for bake and shark and a long swim, Las Cuevas if the sand is crowded, then the flat-bottomed boat into Caroni to watch the scarlet ibis come in.
Plan day two →
Day 3
The flight to Tobago
Twenty minutes in the air, then Buccoo Reef, the Nylon Pool sandbar and a late lunch at Store Bay. Take the reef boat in the morning, before the wind picks the water up.
Plan day three →
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