St Lucia Island, the Caribbean
1 week on St Lucia
St Lucia, greatly fought over by the French and British, remained in British control until becoming independent in 1979. Because of this, you can see both French and British influences on the island today. St Lucia is roughly 230 square miles although much of the island remains rugged mountainous jungle. The most famous landmark of St Lucia are the two Pitons, large pointy volcanic plug mountains sitting on the shores of the west coast. There is no official itinerary for our St Lucia trip, as we recommend staying either near Soufriere (our choice) or in the north near Rodney Bay / Gros Islet. Perhaps you could also split time to stay in each and explore more of the island.
Getting There
It's never easy getting to the Caribbean from Denver airport. Unfortunately, we just don't have very many direct flights. When searching for flights to St Lucia, we noticed that many of the flights from the US leave in the morning. We opted to leave a day early and spend a night in Chicago to allow us to catch the direct flight on United from Chicago to St Lucia in the morning. FYI this flight only flies on certain days of the week!
St Lucia has two airports, one on the north of the island and one near the southern tip, but the southern one, UVF, is the main international airport. If you plan to only stay on the northern end of the island, you will have a longer drive to get to your destination. Our flight from Chicago ended up being delayed by several hours, first for a mechanical issue, and then for a crew change, but we finally were on our way and glad we had a direct flight that would get us there at some point!
Currency and Language
The people of St Lucia speak English as well as a version of French Creole but we had no issues with language at all. We found the people of St Lucia to be extremely friendly and helpful. You will have to deal with a lot of vendors coming up to you trying to sell something, but they can usually be easily dismissed if you're not interested. There seemed to be a large tourism industry for day tours on the island, including "guides" waiting near the popular hiking areas, expecting to be paid. We avoided most of this by having our own car to get around as we pleased.
The currency used is Eastern Caribbean Dollar (ECD) or USD. Most places, you can pay in either, but you will usually get a slightly better deal if you can pay in ECD. After a day of not having any ECD, we visited the ATM and found paying for food and drinks or small entrance fees was better in ECD. 1 USD is pegged at a steady exchange rate of 2.7 ECD. Members of the group of countries using ECD include Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Getting Around
We were so happy with our experience renting from Marcus at Islander Cars! They were extremely flexible, meeting us at the airport and getting us on our way very quickly after our flight delay. They also allowed us to keep the car at the last minute on our departure day when we found out our flight was going to depart several hours late. We simply dropped the car off in the parking lot and were told to give the keys to the person at the booth! We rented a Suzuki Jimny 4x4 (think small Jeep), but did not end up neeing to have a 4x4 car on any of the roads we took. Many reviews online will try to scare you from renting and driving in St Lucia, but we did not find it to be difficult. You need to be comfortable driving on the left side of the road, and other than that, yes there are steep and curvy roads, but overall there is very little traffic and we got around just fine with our downloaded Google map.
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Where to Stay
We recommend staying around the Soufriere area! With so many things to do in on this part of the island, you can self drive and explore without spending a lot of time in a tourist van. Plus, the Pitons are what St. Lucia is known for, so why stay anywhere else? The cruise ships regularly land at the north of the island and we imagine those destinations to be much more crowded. The cruise tourists who opted to drive down in vans or day tours all the way from the north did not look happy and we know they probably spent many hours on the winding roads.
There are several high end resorts as well as many smaller accomodations to choose from in the area. We decided to stay at The Ladera resort mostly because of its outstanding views of the Pitons from the rooms. Our stay included breakfast of our choice every day. Everywhere you go on the resort, you have views of the Pitons. One thing we would note about the hotel is that all of the rooms are open-air style, meaning that we actually had no wall facing the outside. Therefore, no escape from the heat (no A/C) and mosquito nets all around the bed to keep the bugs out. Even with the nets, we felt like we were sharing the bed with a ton of little bugs... And it getds tiring to never have an escape from the weather. Our rental car was virtually the only escape from being "outside" that we had during our entire week!
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Things to Do
Soufriere Drive in Volcano / Mud Bath Experience
Advertised as the world's only "drive-in volcano", this is a super popular place to visit for your mud bath experience. Being right around the corner from our hotel, we could sometimes smell this sulpur hot spring from our open air room! This volcanic hot spot features bubbling sulphur coming out of the ground. We bought tickets to the mud baths, where we were greeted right away by guys who offer to show you through the process of getting into the hot water, then spreading both light gray and black volcanic mud all over. After that, they'll offer to take a million pictures of you before you go to rinse it off in another pool. Be aware, there were tons of tourists there visiting in their day trip vans, I'm sure paying about 10 times as much as what we paid, which was less than $10. Even with the crowds, this was a fun experience and left our skin feeling super soft!
Piton Warm Springs and Waterfall
Around the corner from Sugar Beach and the Petit Piton, there is another area to enjoy a warm mineral bath. For $3pp, you can hike down a small path to get to the Piton Waterfall. The waterfall is actually warm mineral water coming down from a spring, and caught in several pools where you can relax in the warm water and enjoy the view of the waterfall. We had this place practically to ourselves and enjoyed relaxing in the warm water while it rained!
Sugar Beach
You can drive down to the ultra exclusive and expensive Viceroy Resort at Sugar Beach, where they will let you park and walk the remainder of the very steep road to the beach. Beaches in St Lucia are open to all, so all you need to do is bring your own towel or chair. The beach is well known for being situated in the bay between the two pitons, so has fantastic views on both sides, with a protected bay for boats. We spent some time snorkeling here, with some brightly colored fish. We also had lunch at one of the two restaurants at the resort. Both were extremely pricey, and we were not overly impressed. Luckily, they have vans driving back up the road and they will offer to give you a ride back up to your car, which we really appreciated on that hot day!
Scuba Diving in Soufriere and Soufriere Beach
We highly recommend Action Adventure Divers, where we spent 3 mornings going on 2 dives each morning. We loved the laid back but professional attitude of the owner, Chester. All of the dives were only a short boat ride away, and we returned to the beach for our surface interval. We were able to visit some of the most popular dive spots on the island, such as Fairyland, Superman, Piton Wall, and the Pinnacles. The coral and fish were plentiful with some of the sightings being sand eels, the invasive but beautiful lionfish (which were being hunted by our guide and a few fellow divers), families of spiny lobsters, sting ray and eagle ray, crabs, sea turtles, and octopus.
On the beach, we enjoyed post-diving drinks at the beach bar where many locals also joined and hung out. There are several restaurants to choose from around Soufriere Beach. We tried several, but would recommend the food and service at the 3 Beez, where we had their lunch plate of garlic shirmp, rice, potato, beans and mac and cheese. Piton Beer is the go-to beer here and we found that when paying in ECD, they are only about $2 each. Soufriere Beach has a fantastic view of the Petit Piton and is a short walk to anything in town.
Hiking the Pitons
It's possible to hike both of the Pitons, with the larger one being the most straightforward with a more normal trail. The Petit Piton is supposedly a very steep climb utilizing ropes and ladders, and should only be attempted during optimal weather (rain would make this very dangerous)! For either option, we heard that the locals are requiring a guide or fee to be paid anywhere up to $50 USD per person. Since our weather was either very hot and humid, or otherwise was off and on raining a lot of the day, we did not attempt either of the Piton hikes. Instead, we chose to emjoy their beauty from our hotel or the beach.
Our hotel offered a few miles of trails that we decided to try out. The trail led you up and down through the jungle but culminated in an amazing view from the yoga platform where we had unobscured views of both pitons from fairly high up. Another popular trail in the area is the Tet Paul Nature Trail, offering stunning views as well.
Anse Des Sables Beach, near UVF Airport
If you find yourself with a little spare time before heading to your flight, like we did, it's helpful to know that there's a pretty nice beach right around the corner from the airport. The sand is soft and walkable, and there are several restaurants and bars to choose from right along the beach. We had lunch at The Reef Beach Cafe, where they had the sweetest waitress ever! Our table included visiting dogs and cats that all had names and were well taken care of. We tried the fresh fish which came with fries and mac and cheese, and the chicken wings, paired with a few Piton beers. After lunch, we walked along the beach. It was quite windy and rough, so not a great place for swimming, although they do offer kite surfing and lessons at the place right next to our restaurant.
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Food, What to Eat!
Overall, the food in St Lucia is similar to many other Caribbean countries. While we were able to find good options, the food is defintely not the main reason to visit St Lucia! Having a car really paid off in this case, because otherwise, we would have only had our resort or the resort across the street to choose from. Instead, we only ate dinner at our resort twice, once in our room upon late arrival (they were nice enough to offer to bring something for us) and then one other night. Most choices for dinner around the island include a selection of fresh fish, with a few sides. For lunch, we found chicken or sandwiches were a popular option. Most meals are served in caribbean style with accompanying sides such as veggie, coleslaw, fries, mac and cheese, rice or beans.
Soufriere, being a bit of a larger town, had serveral grocery stores and we visited the Massy to pick up things like water, beer, snacks and fruit. We always like to try new and interesting snacks in country and found the spicy Big Foot to be our favorite! There were also several smaller markets around town but Massy seemed to be the island's largest chain.
Here are a few of the places we dined at over our week stay:
The 3 Beez - Lunch - Small beach side restuarant in Soufriere. Lovely owner, get your own beers from the fridge. Choose your protein and get all the sides. We had garlic shrimp!The Ladera Resort, Dasheene Restaurant - Dinner - Fresh seafood and meat options, much more expensive than going into town. Atmosphere is good but overall were glad we could utilize our car the remainder of the trip.
The Green Fig - Lunch - Probably one of our best tasting lunches, we had fresh fish ceviche and fish tacos. Epic views of the pitons. Only complaint was ceviche was ridiculously small for the price.
Island Chef - Dinner - Great recommendation from a dive buddy who spends a lot of time on the island. Local chef with a small unassuming beach side hut in Soufriere. The menu is either fish or vegetarian and you get what he's serving that day! We actually tried to return here on our final night, but unfortunately it was closed.
Belle Vue Restaurant - Lunch - Kind of hard to find, but worth it. It's an upstairs restaurant, friendly wait staff, with a typical lunch menu. We enjoyed the BBQ chicken with sides.
Bonte Restaurant, Sugar Beach - Lunch - Located at the Viceroy Sugar Beach Resort, it's one of two restaurants to choose from on the beach. We had the island "bake" fish sandwich, a local fresh baked fried bread, and the watermelon feta salad. You'll spend a lot to eat here, but I suppose if you want to extend your time on the beach, it's worth it.
Shop North of Jwen Se Moun La Beach Bar - Lunch - We aren't sure the name of this shop but it's directly to the north of the bar we visited every afternoon post scuba diving. We ordered a fish and chicken sandwhich with fries and it took SO SO SO long. Like, 90 minutes perhaps? The chicken sandwich was good but we had wished we hadn't ordered a second sandwich after all that waiting.
Brigands Hideaway - Dinner - On the back roads near the Rabot Estate chocolate farm. Highlight is the unusual but very tasty "peanut colada". We tried the fish chowder and fresh catch of the day.
Street food BBQ in Anse La Raye - Lunch - We happened upon this very proud lady cooking up a ton of BBQ on the side of the street while on our drive up the coast. We went as far as Anse La Raye. Super tender chicken wings with homemade flat bread w garlic butter sauce!
Seashell Beach Restaurant - Dinner - Located right on the beach in Soufriere, we had the catch of the day with some sides. Seemed more popular during lunch time than dinner.
The Ladera Resort - Included Breakfast - We could choose from an array of things such as fresh smoothies, eggs, bacon, waffles, pastries, fruit, and we also tried the local special saltfish bake, which was very salty and fishy as advertised in the name!
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