By Patrick Scott Photographs by Tony Cenicola

Patrick Scott is a regular contributor to New York Times Travel.Jan. 16, 2025

​​​​​​​​Easternmost in the Caribbean Sea, Barbados is an island-nation of dualities. The Atlantic side is tumultuous and windswept, while the Caribbean side is tranquil with soft breezes. The former British colony’s sugarcane plantation system profited enormously from enslaving Black people for centuries. These days, byproducts of that system — the Georgian-style architecture of the historic capital, the age-old rum-making traditions, even some of the grand plantation estates — are among the draws of Barbados’s current dominant industry, tourism, with annual cruise passengers alone equalling the resident population of about 300,000. Barbados is becoming increasingly popular with Americans, as major carriers add daily flights from cities like New York and Atlanta. Still, the low-slung coral island doesn’t feel overcrowded. It feels safe, welcoming and keen on sharing its textured history, fresh seafood, calypso vibes and ubiquitous rum punch.

Recommendations

Key stops

• Rockley Beach is mostly boat-free and ideal for a morning dip, and maybe a swim-along with the spearfisher Mario Howard, who frequents this stretch of coast.
• St. Nicholas Abbey is a former sugarcane plantation that’s now a rum distillery, museum and antique railway centered on a 1658 mansion filled with intriguing artifacts like decorative seashell mosaics in glass boxes.
• George Washington House is a restored 18th-century mansion (with a charming cafe) where a young George Washington lived for nearly two months in 1751.
• At Pebbles Beach, watch the early morning procession of thoroughbreds from the nearby race track led into the sea for a bath and a swim.

Getting around

• The easiest, most entertaining but handle-gripping way to get around the capital, Bridgetown, is on white privately run ZR minivans that careen along main roads, music blaring, packing in passengers for 3.50 Barbadian dollars a ride. (That’s $1.75 in U.S. dollars. Note that both currencies use the “$” symbol. While many hotels list prices in U.S. dollars, the following prices in this guide are in Barbadian dollars.) The public buses are roomier and less eventful, also 3.50 dollars. Driving is on the left and the washboard, potholed, maze of a road network makes navigating a rental car challenging. The local ride-hailing service is pickUP and chats with the friendly drivers are illuminating.

Itinerary

Friday

Rockley Beach

4 p.m. Behold the aqua tableau

All beaches are public in Barbados, offering plenty of options for turquoise-water swims (provided there’s no invasion of sargassum, a seaweed that can clog shorelines in spring or summer). Early English colonizers settled off Carlisle Bay’s placid waters on the west coast, now a lively strip of restaurants and aquatic pursuits such as snorkeling over sunken vessels. Heywoods Beach is a serene, scalloped shoreline in the northwest. Crane Beach is where the Caribbean and Atlantic meet in a roiling bay below dramatic cliffs in the southeast. Swim toward the white buoy at Rockley Beach, in the southwest, where sea fans sway and blue barber fish play among coral. A languid sea turtle may enter the tableau. The Tiki Bar, steps away, rents umbrellas and lounges for about 30 Barbadian dollars (or about $15), with a 20 dollar bar credit. (Note that prices listed in this guide are in Barbadian dollars.)

The outdoor fish fry in Oistins

7:30 p.m. Party at the fish fry, then feast at a family grill

On Friday nights, locals point visitors to Oistins, a town on the south coast, for its boisterous fish fry, lit up with flaming grills and crammed with rum-fueled patrons at long tables under porches and tents. You can break away from the throngs but still find a lively scene at Shakers Bar & Grill, a dinner-only restaurant that serves perhaps the best grilled lionfish on the island (45 dollars). The barbecue ribs (50 dollars) are delicious, too. The owners, husband-and-wife Amy and Wesley Gittens, converted the so-called chattel house — small, wooden, movable houses that were built by the first freed, Black plantation laborers in the 1800s and are still prevalent on the island — into a restaurant in 2006. He grew up in the neighborhood behind Rockley Beach and oversees the kitchen; she is a transplant from Maine schmoozing at the tables out front. Reserve ahead.

The Atlantic side, including Bathsheba Beach (above), is tumultuous and windswept, while the Caribbean side is tranquil with soft breezes.

Saturday

6:30 a.m. Race a horse in the sea

The stamp of colonialism is all over the island, especially in Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison, once a major navy and army base for the British Empire and now a UNESCO World Heritage site that includes a 19th-century horse racing track, the Garrison Savannah. Each morning the handlers at the racetrack hustle clip-clopping thoroughbreds down paved streets to Pebbles Beach next to the Radisson hotel for a bath and a swim. Take photos of horse heads bobbing in the glossy bay or get in and swim with the aqua-gallopers as the handlers, like water skiers moving backwards, brace bare feet against horse breast and lean back holding the reins. Face-to-face, they make a loop about 70 yards out. The men come and go with the horses from about 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. daily and welcome tips.

10 a.m. Learn about a formative trip

George Washington not only slept here, he lived for several weeks in 1751 in a plantation house overlooking the Caribbean, now the impressive George Washington House museum. Washington was 19 when he sailed with his tuberculosis-stricken half brother for the reputed salubrious climate of Barbados — the future founding father’s only trip abroad. In his bedroom, Washington battled smallpox, which gave him immunity and potentially saved his life when the deadly disease swept through his army in the Revolutionary War. Though it tiptoes around the horrors of slavery, the museum is full of artistic and history-rich displays like “The Barbados-U.S. Connection.” Among the first outsiders to settle South Carolina were adventurers from Barbados who sailed with their families and slaves under a charter from King Charles II. Admission 40 dollars.

12:30 p.m. Taste traditional home cooking

If fish is for Friday, the traditional Bajan dish of pudding and souse is the staple of Saturday. The souse is pickled cucumbers, onions and boiled pork, and you’ll find the perfect combination of sour and tender at Velma’s Place in the middle of the island. “I cook with love, and I love to cook,” the owner Velma Stoute will tell you in between taking orders on the porch of her family house in a lush gully surrounded by farms. She mashes her sweet potato pudding with onion, sugar and clove for that special zest. Equally delicious is her banana cou cou, smashed unripened banana topped with lamb gravy. Order pudding and souse lean if you prefer chunks of pork meat to bits of tail, ears and feet, and pair it with subtly sweet sugarcane juice. Lunch for two, about 100 dollars.

2 p.m. Contemplate while meandering

With a stunning panoramic view of the Atlantic, St. John Parish Church and its coral-stone Gothic tower sit on the edge of a cliff overlooking hilly, elevated lands on the east coast called the Scotland District. Wander through peaceful, tree-shaded grounds, and behind the church you’ll find a manicured graveyard with a collection of mold-tinted tombs and headstones with inscriptions dimmed by time like that of a 10-year-old son of a “free Woman of colour” who died in 1816. Inside, marvel at the pulpit intricately carved of four local woods. You can also buy hand-whittled coconut birds and other crafts from vendors out front.

3:30 p.m. Bathe in a forest revival

Aid the island’s ecosystem with a trek through nearby Coco Hill Forest, a 66-acre forest and regenerative project owned by the writer and filmmaker Mahmood Patel. With a vision to revive an island traumatized by centuries of sugarcane monoculture by reintroducing native plants, he has planted more than 2,000 trees since starting the project in 2014. Walking the two miles of rolling trails and earthen staircases takes about one-and-a-half to two hours. Don’t miss the expansive vista from the yoga platform of a rare section of undisturbed original forest, with towering royal palms framing the lush hills cascading toward the Atlantic. Cap the visit with a bottle of ginger rum liqueur (72 dollars) made in collaboration with the island’s Foursquare Rum Distillery. Admission 25 dollars, adults.

Sea Shed

7:30 p.m. Savor seaside seafood

Sea Shed, an airy, seaside restaurant on the northwest coast with strung lights and a tentlike canopy, features a blend of local and Mediterranean cuisine and a laissez-faire vibe. Try the grilled barracuda (73 dollars), on a bed of venere black rice with salsa and lemon beurre blanc, a butter sauce, or the mahi-mahi (71 dollars), fried in a batter using the local Banks beer and served with breadfruit fries. Reservations recommended. For quicker, cheaper fare, food trucks draw crowds at Worthing Square, where Ackee Tree serves a hearty bowl of flying fish and cou cou, the national dish, (25 dollars), and Bacco makes a fine vegetarian pizza (30 dollars).

The Dive

10 p.m. Dance on a dime at the Dive

Even if you’re not on the island in July and August for Crop Over Festival, which celebrates the traditional end of the harvest with tuk bands (local marching ensembles with drums) and fast-paced soca music seemingly everywhere, you can still hear steel pan and reggae Caribbean vibes any time of year. Trotty Trotman coaxes bright plinky notes from his steel drum most afternoons at Lobster Alive on Carlisle Bay. For night jammin’ head to the nightlife hub of St. Lawrence Gap and the Dive, a two-story, shanty-like bar where a reggae band plays a tight and exuberant set from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. (20 dollar cover). Try the Lion Fish Juk (22 dollars), a margarita with mango and Bajan pepper sauce.

Capturing the sunset at Batts Rock Beach, Bridgetown.

Sunday

10 a.m. Delve into a plantation’s past

St. Nicholas Abbey was one of many sugarcane plantation estates that transformed the island into a profit center for England and a hub of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Today the site is a museum and rum distillery that doesn’t shirk from its past. The Warren family bought the defunct plantation and its triple-gable Jacobean mansion in 2006 and uses sugarcane syrup from stalks grown on the property to make its award-winning rums, aged in bourbon casks from Kentucky. The 66-dollar house ticket includes a tasting of the spicy smooth five-year-old rum (150 dollars in the gift shop). If you have time, take a 40-minute train ride around the property on a Victorian line that harkens to the railroad that cut through the island in the 1800s (combo ticket 120 dollars).

Trevor Burnett’s studio at Haymans Market

1 p.m. Sample artisan creations

Round out Sunday with shopping and lunch at Haymans Market, a newly converted sugarcane factory, which has local crafts, food, events and a sweeping view of the Caribbean. Among the dozens of shops is Knotty Bliss, which sells jewelry (earrings from 30 dollars) and handbags (from 120 dollars) crocheted by the local artist Gail Coulthrust-Fitzpatrick. At Trevor Burnett’s studio, he sells reproductions of his photorealistic paintings of island life on magnets (from 20 dollars). Food vendors offer a variety of creative fare such as coconut-lentil tacos (12 dollars) at Sanwidge and samosa chaat (20 dollars) at Deldia’s Kitchen. Or, as a more chilled alternative to the market, head across the island instead to the bountiful buffet brunch at the Atlantis Historic Inn (120 dollars per person), which comes with a rhythmic soundtrack of Atlantic waves pounding the craggy coast.

Plan your trip to Barbados

An Independent Barbados