Antigua and Barbuda: Eight Attractions and Natural Wonders

A beach for every day of the year

Antigua likes to say it has 365 beaches, one for each day. The number is marketing, but the impression is right: a fairly small, low, dry island with a deeply crinkled coastline and calm Caribbean water, plus a long history as a British naval base that left it with the best-preserved Georgian dockyard anywhere. Barbuda, its flat, sandy, almost empty sister island 40 kilometres north, is a different experience again — pink beaches, a huge bird colony, and barely 1,500 people.

The eight places below cover both islands. Antigua is easy to get around by hire car; Barbuda is a short flight or a fast ferry, and best given an overnight.

1. Nelson's Dockyard and Shirley Heights

English Harbour, on the south coast, is a near-landlocked bay that the Royal Navy turned into its main Caribbean base in the 18th century. At its head, Nelson's Dockyard — named for Horatio Nelson, who served here as a young captain — has been restored as a working marina with its Georgian sail lofts, capstans, and officers' quarters intact. It is the centrepiece of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On the ridge above, the ruined gun batteries of Shirley Heights give the classic view down over the harbours. The Sunday-evening barbecue and steel-band party up here, timed for sunset, is an island institution.

2. Dickenson Bay and the northwest beaches

The northwest corner of Antigua, near the capital, holds the island's most developed run of coast: Dickenson Bay, a long sheltered strip of calm water and resorts, with Runaway Bay next door. This is where to go for jet-skis, paddleboards, catamaran trips, and beach bars, and where the package hotels cluster.

For something quieter, the west coast has Ffryes Beach, Darkwood, and Jolly Beach; the further southwest you go, the emptier it gets. Almost every beach on the island is legally public up to the high-water mark.

3. Devil's Bridge

On the windward eastern tip of the island, in a small national park, the Atlantic has undercut the soft limestone into a natural bridge, with blowholes that spout spray when a swell comes through. The water here is rough and the rock is slick — it is a place to watch the sea, not swim in it, and the name comes from a grim history of enslaved people who died here.

It is an easy stop on a drive around the east of the island, combined with the long empty strand of Long Bay and the ruins at Betty's Hope.

4. Half Moon Bay

Many Antiguans will tell you Half Moon Bay is the best beach on the island: a kilometre-long crescent on the southeast coast, backed by low cliffs and sea grape, with a reef across the mouth of the bay. One end is sheltered and good for swimming; the other picks up Atlantic surf.

It is a protected area, with no big development — just a beach bar or two — and it takes a bit of driving to reach, which keeps the numbers down. Bring your own shade and water.

5. St John's and the cathedral

The capital, St John's, is a low grid of streets around a harbour where the cruise ships tie up. Its landmark is the Anglican cathedral, its twin towers visible from across the island; the current building dates from 1845, the third on the site after two were shaken down.

The town has the small but well-done Museum of Antigua and Barbuda in the old courthouse, the restored market and shopping quays by the water, and — on Saturdays — a lively public market. It is a morning's wander rather than a destination in itself.

6. Codrington and the Frigate Bird Sanctuary, Barbuda

Barbuda is flat, scrubby, and almost undeveloped, with one small town — Codrington — on the shore of a large brackish lagoon. In the mangroves at the north end of that lagoon is one of the largest colonies of magnificent frigatebirds in the world: several thousand pairs, the males inflating scarlet throat pouches in the breeding season. You visit by local boat from Codrington, drifting to within a few metres of the nests.

Barbuda was hit hard by Hurricane Irma in 2017, which forced a total evacuation; the island and its wildlife are still recovering.

7. Barbuda's beaches

Barbuda's west and south coasts are one nearly continuous beach — around 17 miles of it — with stretches where the sand is genuinely pink, coloured by fragments of red shell washed up from the reef. There is almost no one on it. A couple of small lodges and day-trip operators serve visitors; otherwise it is you, the frigatebirds, and the odd wild donkey.

This emptiness has made Barbuda a target for resort developers, which is a live and contested issue on an island where land has traditionally been held in common.

8. English Harbour and the sailing scene

Beyond the museum-piece dockyard, English Harbour and neighbouring Falmouth Harbour are the heart of Caribbean yachting. The sheltered water fills with masts in the winter season, and two big events — Antigua Sailing Week in spring and the Classic Yacht Regatta before it — draw crews and spectators from around the world.

Even without a boat it is a good place to spend an evening: the old naval buildings hold bars and restaurants, and the boatyard bustle, with superyachts alongside wooden classics, is a sight in itself.

Antigua works as a straightforward flop-and-drop beach holiday, but a hire car and two or three days of driving — the dockyard, the east coast, a Barbuda day trip — turn it into something more interesting.