Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent was the last Caribbean island where the indigenous Kalinago held out, alongside the Garifuna, or "Black Caribs" — descendants of shipwrecked and escaped Africans and Caribs. They fought two wars against the British, and after their defeat in 1797 most of the Garifuna were deported en masse to an island off Honduras, from where they spread along the Central American coast — a founding story for the wider Garifuna world.

Britain took full control in 1783 and ran a plantation economy of sugar and later arrowroot, of which Saint Vincent was long the world's leading producer, and bananas, worked by enslaved and then indentured labour. The islands joined the short-lived West Indies Federation, became a British associated state, and gained independence in 1979 — just days after La Soufrière, the volcano at the north of Saint Vincent, erupted.

The Unity Labour Party under Ralph Gonsalves has governed since 2001. Bananas have declined with the loss of European trade preferences, and the economy now leans on agriculture, fishing, and a tourism sector concentrated in the Grenadines rather than on the rugged main island.

The culture is Afro-Caribbean, English-speaking, and church-going, with a distinctive Garifuna and Kalinago heritage kept alive in the northeast of Saint Vincent. Vincy Mas, the summer Carnival, is the biggest festival, and the pre-Christmas "Nine Mornings" — early-morning street celebrations for the nine days before Christmas — is unique to the country.

Sailing runs deep, especially on Bequia, which has a boat-building tradition, its own model-boat craft, and one of the few communities still permitted a small traditional whale hunt under an indigenous exemption. Cricket, string-band music, calypso, and soca fill out the cultural life.

Most of the population lives on Saint Vincent, in and around Kingstown and along the leeward coast, with the Grenadines home to only a few thousand people spread across the chain. The economy depends on agriculture — bananas, arrowroot, vegetables, and fishing — and on Grenadines tourism, from Bequia's modest guesthouses to the ultra-luxury of Mustique and Canouan.

The country is acutely exposed to disaster: the 2021 eruption of La Soufrière forced some 20,000 people from the north of Saint Vincent and wrecked crops, and Hurricane Beryl in 2024 flattened much of Union Island and the southern Grenadines. Remittances from a large diaspora are a steady support.

Vincentian cooking is Creole. The national dish is roasted breadfruit and fried jackfish, and callaloo soup, "pelau" rice, stewed and grilled fresh fish, "souse", and plenty of provisions — dasheen, sweet potato, plantain — are the staples. Arrowroot, once the island's cash crop, still turns up in porridges and baking.

Fresh juices, mauby, and sorrel are the everyday drinks, with Hairoun, the local beer, and rum for the evening.

The Grenadines are the draw. The Tobago Cays, a protected marine park of uninhabited islets and reef, is one of the Caribbean's finest snorkelling and day-sailing spots, with turtles on the seagrass flats. Bequia, a short ferry from Kingstown, has a walkable harbour town, boat-builders, and quiet beaches; Mustique is a private celebrity retreat; and Canouan, Mayreau, Palm Island, and Petit St Vincent complete the chain.

Saint Vincent itself is greener and wilder: the climb of the La Soufrière volcano when the alert level allows, the Vermont nature trail for the endemic St Vincent parrot, the Falls of Baleine reached by boat, the Botanical Gardens in Kingstown — among the oldest in the western hemisphere — and black-sand fishing villages along the coast.