Antigua keeps score in beaches. Here is how to spend them.
Which boat actually circles the island. What the stingray sandbar costs with the transfer included. Whether Shirley Heights on a Sunday lives up to the noise. Reviews of every tour you can book in Antigua and Barbuda.
The circumnavigation, the sandbar, the lookout, the jerk class.
The four bookings a first week in Antigua hangs off, and what each one costs.
01The whole coastlineAdventure Antigua – The Xtreme CircumnavigationA fast boat right around Antigua, with swim stops at the Pillars of Hercules and lunch on a beach you cannot drive to.
02The sandbarStingray City Antigua for all the ages – ROUND TRIP INCLUDEDSouthern rays on a shallow sandbar off the north-east coast. Round-trip transfer is built into the price, which matters here.
03The Sunday lookoutSunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round tripSteel pan, barbecue smoke and the whole of English Harbour laid out below. The transfer share seat is the cheap way up.
04The kitchenNicole’s Table – All about JerkJerk from scratch in a hillside kitchen above Jolly Harbour, then you sit down and eat what you made.
An Antiguan week is mostly a choice between water, road and kitchen.
Sand you reach by boat, a sandbar full of rays, sugar-mill ruins on the windward side, a full loop of the island by road, mangrove creeks in a clear kayak, and a cooking class that ends as lunch.
Reef, sandbar, sunset deck or mangrove creek. Pick your water.
Almost every good Antiguan day starts at a jetty. Four kinds of day on the water, what it costs to get aboard each one, and what you actually see.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Turtle Beach Power Snorkeling Adventure
Reef snorkellingCades Reef and Paradise Reef, gear handed to you at the rail.
The stingray sandbarWaist-deep water, southern rays, a guide holding one steady.
Full days afloatBird Island, Green Island and lunch cooked on board.
Kayak and paddleboardClear hulls through the mangrove channels on the flat side.
All 9 days on the water →
St John’s is where the ship docks and the day actually starts.
The capital holds the cathedral towers, the market on a Saturday morning and the quay every excursion leaves from. Most boats north, most transfers east and the best short beach runs all begin within ten minutes of it.
The Antiguan days out more travellers book than any other.
Every Antiguan tour we have reviewed →These carry the most travellers on the island, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Adventure Antigua – The Xtreme Circumnavigation
Adventure Antigua’s Xtreme Circumnavigation takes you around Antigua by fast powerboat in about six hours. You’ll visit Stingray City, snorkel at the Pillars of Hercules, eat lunch on Green Island, hear about Nelson’s Dockyard, and finish at secluded Rendezvous Bay. Crew members such as Captain David, Brendan, Lesley, Kimba, and Tyrese have led recent trips.
From · $221
Read our review →
2
Turtle Beach Power Snorkeling Adventure
from $132
3
Scenic Full Day Tour of Antigua
from $142
4
Snorkel – Lobster Lunch Cruise to Bird Island and Paradise Reef
from $185
5
Adventure Antigua – Eli’s Original Eco Tour
from $142
6
Antigua Round Island Tour
from $93
7
Antigua VIP Tours – Private Platinum Tour
from $170
8
Private Snorkeling and Sightseeing Tour of Antigua
from $125
One road rings Antigua, and a day is enough to drive all of it.
The loop takes in Betty’s Hope, Devil’s Bridge on the Atlantic edge, the rainforest road at Fig Tree Drive and the climb to Shirley Heights. Go with a driver who stops, or take the wheel of something with knobbly tyres.
- 1Adventure Antigua – The Xtreme Circumnavigationfrom $221
- 2Antigua Round Island Tourfrom $93
- 3St. Mary’s Mud Buggy Experiencefrom $145
Three things Antigua has that the next island along does not.
Every Caribbean island sells sand and rum punch. A working Georgian dockyard, a steel-pan party on a gun battery and a sandbar you can stand on a mile offshore are Antiguan.
Nelson’s Dockyard
Georgian capstans, sail lofts and officers’ quarters still standing around a working harbour, built when the Royal Navy needed somewhere in the Caribbean to careen its ships. Yachts tie up where frigates did. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and still an operating marina, which is why it does not read like a museum.
- 1Historic City, Fort and Beach E-Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 58 reviews
- 2Cultural and Historical Home Tour in The Antiguan Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 56 reviews
- 3Antigua Historical Sites Island Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 41 reviews
Shirley Heights Lookout
An eighteenth-century battery on the ridge above English Harbour, where a steel band plays from late afternoon and the barbecue smoke drifts over the parapet. The view down over the two harbours is the one on every postcard of the island. Sunday is the big one, Thursday the quieter repeat.
- 1Sunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 71 reviews
- 2Taxi to Shirley heights lookout Sunday social package★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 18 reviews
- 3Shirley Heights Sunset Party Taxi (Other packages are available)★★★★★★★★★★ 3.0 · 11 reviews
The stingray sandbar
Off the north-east coast the sea shallows onto a sand flat where southern stingrays have learned that boats mean squid. The water sits at chest height, the rays come in around your legs and a guide lifts one to the surface so you can feel how soft the underside is.
- 1Stingray City Antigua for all the ages – ROUND TRIP INCLUDED★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 196 reviews
- 26-Hours Tour East Coast of Antigua: Stingray City, Lunch & Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 109 reviews
- 3Stingray City experience, Devils Bridge and Long Bay Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 59 reviews
What a day out in Antigua actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The cheapest end buys a beach run or a seat up to the lookout; the top end buys a boat and a crew.
Beach transfers, the share seat up to Shirley Heights and the short runs out of St John’s.
The island standards: the sandbar trips, reef snorkelling, island loops and cooking classes.
- 1Turtle Beach Power Snorkeling Adventurefrom $132
- 2Scenic Full Day Tour of Antiguafrom $142
- 3Adventure Antigua – Eli’s Original Eco Tourfrom $142
Private drivers for the day, chartered boats and the full circumnavigation.
Four Antiguan bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of the island can be arranged the night before from a bar stool. These four run on boat capacity, one day of the week or a kitchen with a fixed number of chairs.
- 01Adventure Antigua – The Xtreme CircumnavigationOne fast boat, one departure, a set number of seats. It is the most booked tour on the island and it goes early.
- 02Sunset party at Shirley Heights – SHARE round tripThe party runs on its own evenings, not yours. If your Sunday is spoken for, the seat is gone with it.
- 03Nicole’s Table – All about JerkA home kitchen with a table that seats a dozen. Classes do not run daily and they do not add chairs.
- 04Stingray City Antigua for all the ages – ROUND TRIP INCLUDEDTrips are timed to the tide and shared with the cruise ships in port that morning. The quiet departures go first.
The Atlantic side gets rough. The island has an answer for that.
North-easterly trade winds run hard from December to March, and they chop up the windward coast and the boat days that cross it. The wind-proof afternoons are all inland or under a roof: a rum still on the beach at Galleon, a hillside kitchen, the sugar-mill ruins, the lanes of the capital.
By base and by wheels
By kind of day - water, road, kitchen or hill
Capital, sandbar, dockyard, Atlantic coast: how a first Antiguan week usually falls.
The reef flatsThe newest Antiguan tour reviews.
More new reviews →
Caribbean Stonehenge – Hike on Green Castle Hill, Antigua.
Read our review →
Half-Day Small-Group E-Bike Guided Tour in Antigua
Read our review →
Shared Roundtrip Taxi Transfer from Antigua Airport to Royalton Antigua Resort
Read our review →
Antigua Eco Island Tour (City, Country, Beach, & Heritage Sites)
Read our review →
3-Hours Eye-Opening Stingray City Antigua – Transfer R/T included
Read our review →
Shirley Heights Sunset Party Taxi (Other packages are available)
Read our review →
Luxury Airport transfer from or to Antigua Airport
Read our review →
