Twenty-one miles of island. Pick your water carefully.
Which catamaran actually anchors over the wrecks. What a morning with the turtles costs. Whether the cave tram is worth the ticket when the gullies outside are free. Reviews of the tours you can book in Barbados.
The whole island in a dayBarbados Island Tour, Monkey feeding & Swimming with the Turtles
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · from $147
Green monkeys, feeding timeBarbados Small-Group Monkey Feeding Experience
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $75
Turtles, twenty minutes offshoreChe’s snorkel cruise! turtles & shipwrecks (semi private)
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $75
Turtles, a food walk, a rum bench and a cave.
The four bookings a first week in Barbados tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The morning everyone booksBarbados Catamaran Turtle and Shipwreck Snorkeling CruiseHawksbill turtles first, then the wrecks in Carlisle Bay. Take the earlier sailing: the water is flatter and the boats are thinner on it.
02Lunch, walkedOriginal Bajan Walking Food TourFish cakes, a rum shop, a bakery and a market, on foot through Bridgetown. Come hungry and skip breakfast.
03The rum benchMount Gay Signature Rum Tasting ExperienceA tasting flight at the distillery that has been shipping since 1703. An hour, and cheaper than most boat trips.
04Underground, then the sandBeautiful Barbados: Harrisons Cave & Beach Day TourA tram through the limestone at Harrison’s Cave, then a west-coast beach for the afternoon. The standard wet-weather answer, and good dry too.
Catamaran lunch, turtle run or the wrecks. Pick your boat.
Almost every good morning here ends up offshore. Three kinds of boat day, what it costs to get on each one, and what you are actually in the water for.
Bridgetown, Carlisle Bay, the cave country and the wild side.
A capital with a UNESCO garrison around it, a bay with two wrecks and a turtle colony, limestone caves under the middle of the island, and an Atlantic coast nobody swims. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Barbados taught the world to distil. The evidence is still open.
The island ran on sugar for three centuries and the leftovers make the best afternoon here: a coral-stone great house above the cane at St Nicholas Abbey, a pot still still working, a tasting bench at Mount Gay. Most of them sit within half an hour of each other in the north.
Bridgetown: the garrison before noon, the rum shops after.
Everything in Bridgetown →
The old town and its garrison are a UNESCO site you can cross on foot in an afternoon: a synagogue from 1654, a parade ground that became a racetrack, and the careenage where the boats still tie up. The bay is a five-minute walk from all of it.
The old town, walked properly
Two hundred years of trading streets, the Jewish quarter and the parade ground, with somebody explaining what happened where. The cheapest hour on this page and one of the best.
Carlisle Bay, straight off the beach
The bay in front of the city holds a turtle colony and two sunken hulls in swimmable depth. The short boat runs put you over both and get you back for lunch.
Half a day, back before the horn
Bridgetown’s port sits inside the city, so a cruise call buys a real day out rather than a coach queue. These run to the ship’s clock, not yours.
The Barbados days out more travellers book than any others.
Every Barbadian tour we have reviewed →The boats, the walks and the tastings that carry the biggest crowds on the island, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Barbados Catamaran Turtle and Shipwreck Snorkeling Cruise
Board the 60-foot El Tigre in Bridgetown for a three- or five-hour Barbados catamaran cruise. Snorkel for 45 minutes with turtles, explore a shipwreck, and enjoy coral, tropical fish, unlimited drinks, and a breakfast snack. The five-hour option adds lunch and a third stop. Hotel pickup is offered from select hotels.
From · $85
Read our review →
2
Barbados Catamaran Turtle Snorkel with Lunch and Open Bar
from $110
3
Original Bajan Walking Food Tour
from $94
4
Electric Bike Bajan Sightseeing Experience (Transport Included)
from $125
5
5-Hour Small-Group Catamaran Cruise from Bridgetown with Lunch
from $175
6
Barbados Turtle and Shipwreck Snorkel Adventure
from $36
7
Catamaran Tour with Snorkeling and Lunch
from $115
8
Mount Gay Signature Rum Tasting Experience
from $36
Carlisle Bay: two wrecks, a turtle colony, no swell.
The bay curls south from the capital and stays flat almost all year. Hawksbills feed off the Pebbles Beach end, the sunken hulls sit in shallow water a few hundred metres out, and everything runs from a jetty you can walk to.
Every Carlisle Bay morning →
The middle of Barbados is hollow, and you can ride through it.
Rain has been draining through this coral cap for a million years, cutting rooms out of the limestone. Harrison’s Cave takes an electric tram past the stalactites; the gullies above it run wild with mahogany and green monkeys, and Hunte’s Gardens is planted inside a collapsed sinkhole next door.
- 1Cave & Monkey Zipline Experience at Harrison’s Cave by Chukkafrom $135
- 2Beautiful Barbados: Harrisons Cave & Beach Day Tourfrom $128
- 3Half-Day Barbados Tour Harrisons Cave Hunte’s Garden and Bathshebafrom $140
What a day out in Barbados actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The island has a reputation for being dear, and a good share of the best mornings here come in under the cost of dinner.
Walking tours of the old town, a distillery tasting, the short turtle runs and the heritage railway.
The full-day standards: catamaran lunch cruises, coast-to-coast island tours, the cave and the submarine.
Private drivers, chartered sailing days and the small-group boats that keep the deck half empty.
Three things that only happen in Barbados.
Sun and sand are the Caribbean’s standard issue. A monkey with a West African passport, a fish fry that runs like a village dance, and the oldest rum in the world are not.
The Barbados Green Monkey
The monkeys crossed from West Africa on seventeenth-century ships and never left. There are thousands in the gullies now, technically an introduced species and thoroughly a national mascot. Feeding time at the reserve is late afternoon, and the troop keeps its own schedule rather than yours.
- 1Barbados Island Tour, Monkey feeding & Swimming with the Turtles★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 329 reviews
- 2Cave & Monkey Zipline Experience at Harrison’s Cave by Chukka★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 313 reviews
- 3Barbados Small-Group Monkey Feeding Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 211 reviews
The Oistins Fish Fry
The fishing town on the south coast turns its market over to grills, folding tables and a sound system every Friday night. Marlin, swordfish and flying fish come off the coals with macaroni pie, the queues run twenty deep by nine, and half the island turns up. Other nights it ticks over; Friday is the one.
- 1Oistins reservation with drink & return transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 69 reviews
- 2Experience Coastal Oistins★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 36 reviews
- 3Friday Night Live in Oistins Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 17 reviews
The Oldest Rum in the World
Mount Gay holds a deed dated 1703, which makes it the oldest rum brand still running anywhere. The island invented the stuff: sugar planters here worked out what to do with molasses before anyone else did. The tastings walk you from the bright white spirit through the barrel-aged ones, and the good bottles cost less at the gate than at the airport.
- 1Mount Gay Signature Rum Tasting Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 640 reviews
- 2St. Nicholas Abbey Heritage Great House and Rum Distillery Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 257 reviews
- 3Mount Gay Cocktail Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 213 reviews
Four Barbadian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be sorted from a beach bar the evening before. These four run on trams, timetables and a Friday night, and none of them care when your flight lands.
- 01Barbados Harrison’s Cave Tram Tour and Boat Cruise Snorkel AdventureThe cave is seen from an electric tram that leaves on timed departures with a fixed number of seats. When the day’s seats are gone, they are gone.
- 02Oistins reservation with drink & return transferThe fish fry is a Friday night institution. Turn up on a Tuesday and you get a quiet car park with two grills open.
- 03Atlantis Submarine Day TourThe sub dives to a published timetable and carries a set number of passengers per dive. There is no standing room on a submarine.
- 04Mount Gay Signature Rum Tasting ExperienceDistillery tastings run at scheduled tour times through the day, each with its own seat count, rather than as a walk-in bar.
The Atlantic side of Barbados does not swim. Plan around that.
The east coast is open ocean: Bathsheba, the Soup Bowl and a line of surf that has drowned strong swimmers. It is the finest drive on the island and the worst place to get in. Everything you actually swim off is on the west and south, twenty minutes away, and the calm water starts at Carlisle Bay.
Flying fish, macaroni pie, and a rum shop on every corner.
Barbados eats better than its hotel strip suggests. Book the market walk for the morning, the fish fry for a Friday, and leave room for a cutter from a roadside window.
- 1Original Bajan Walking Food Tourfrom $94
- 2Harbour Lights Beach Extravaganza and Dinner Showfrom $119
- 3Mount Gay Cocktail Workshopfrom $67
By place — the coast, the capital and the interior
By kind of day — boat, cave, kitchen or great house
Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown, the cave, the north, Oistins on Friday.
The newest Barbados tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Lunch At Animal Flower Cave with Scenic Drive of Barbados
Read our review →
Bridgetown Historic Garrison A UNESCO World Heritage Site Tour
Read our review →
Barbados Private Island Tour: A Fully Customizable Experience
Read our review →
Walking Tour of Speightstown and its Museum – The Forgotten Town
Read our review →
A two hour historic walking tour of Speightstown
Read our review →
Grantley Adams Airport (BGI) to Bridgetown – Round-Trip Transfer
Read our review →
Unapologetically BLACK! A Heritage Walking Tour of Bridgetown
Read our review →
Tastes and Tales Tour Culinary Journey in Barbados
Read our review →
Barbados Fruit to Scoop Culinary Experience : Taste & Make Sorbet
Read our review →
