St Kitts is 23 miles round. Nevis is the bit you can see from it.
What the crater hike really takes out of you, whether the sugar train is worth $124, and which boat gets you to Pinney’s and back before the ship sails. Reviews of every tour on both islands.
The circuit, the crater, the sugar train and the crossing.
Four days that between them cover both islands. What each costs, and what the people who took it said afterwards.
01The first dayFull Island Panoramic Tour of St KittsOne road, right round the island, with Timothy Hill and Brimstone Hill on it. Do it before you decide what else you want.
02The early startVolcano Hike to Mt. Liamuiga the Highest PeakUp through the rainforest to the crater rim and back down on the same mud. Guides leave at first light for good reason.
03The three-hour oneSugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortNarrow-gauge track laid for the cane, now an open-sided observation car with a drink in your hand.
04The other islandNevis Getaway with Free Time at Pinney’s BeachAcross the Narrows for the afternoon, and Pinney’s Beach is a two-mile stretch of sand with almost nobody on it.
One road goes round St Kitts, and almost everything is on it.
The Island Main Road runs a loop under Mount Liamuiga: Basseterre and the port, the batik works at Romney Manor, the fortress above Sandy Point, the black lava on the Atlantic side, then Timothy Hill where the two seas sit either side of you. Half a day covers it, and the rest of the week makes more sense afterwards.
- 1Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kittsfrom $68
- 2Basseterre Food and Walking Tourfrom $76
- 3Half Day St. Kitts Party Bus City Excursion and Beachfrom $38
Six ways to spend a day between Basseterre and Charlestown.
A green island with a volcano in the middle and a smaller one two miles across the water. Sand on the peninsula, a crater at the top, a working port in the capital, and a strait to get over. Pick where the day starts and the rest of it follows.
Most of a St Kitts week ends up on the water anyway.
The Caribbean side is flat and warm, the Atlantic side is not, and the peninsula has both within a mile of each other. Three kinds of day on the water, what it costs to get on each one, and which coast it happens on.
The days out more people book than anything else on St Kitts.
Every review on the site →Ordered the way the island actually books them, with what each one costs and how long it takes.
1
Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kitts
See Brimstone Hill, Black Rocks, Romney Manor, Basseterre, and more on a five-hour, round-island St. Kitts tour.
From · $68
Read our review →
2
The Grand Tour of St. Kitts
from $75
3
St.Kitts See It All The Local Behind The Scenes Tour Of St. Kitts
from $95
4
ATV Tour of St Kitts
from $110
5
St. Kitts Zipline Experience
from $99
6
Palms Court Gardens and Restaurant Day Pass
from $25
7
Liamuiga Natural Farm Tour – St.Kitts’ Coffee Farm
from $161
8
Self Drive 4×4 Off Road Jeep Wrangler & Beach Chill
from $85
Mount Liamuiga is a dormant volcano with a rainforest on its skirts.
The crater is a kilometre wide and the track up to it is mud, roots and rope in places. Lower down, the ghauts run with water and the vervet monkeys come out early. You can do the full summit day or you can walk a couple of hours in the trees and still see the point of it.
- 1Liamuiga Natural Farm Tour – St.Kitts’ Coffee Farmfrom $161
- 2St.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)from $69
- 3St. Kitts Rainforest Tourfrom $70
What a day out on St Kitts actually costs.
Three price bands, and the island does not keep its best days in the top one. Plenty of them cost less than dinner on the Strip.
Beach transfers, a walk round old Basseterre, the shorter runs out of the port.
The island circuit, the crater hike, the sugar train and most of the boat days.
Private drivers, chartered catamarans and the days that take the whole island in one go.
Nevis is a single mountain in the sea, and it keeps its own cloud.
Two miles of water separate the islands and the crossing takes about forty minutes. On the other side: Charlestown, a hot spring running since 1778, Pinney’s Beach, and a peak the Spanish named for snow because the cloud on top never leaves.
Four St Kitts bookings that run on somebody else’s clock.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast. These four cannot: they run on timetables, opening hours and the tide, none of which care what time your ship docked.
- 01St.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)A five-hour round trip on a mud track. The guides start at first light to be off the mountain before the afternoon heat, so there is no late option.
- 02Sugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortThe last working railway in the West Indies runs to a published timetable, not on demand, and the seats go with the ships in the harbour.
- 03Nevis Getaway with Free Time at Pinney’s BeachEverything over there runs off the crossing. The boats keep a timetable and the last one back is the last one.
- 04Scenic Romney Manor & Timothy Hill or Panoramic Brimstone HillThe fortress sits eight hundred feet up on a volcanic bluff and the gate shuts in the late afternoon, well before sunset.
St Kitts keeps three things the rest of the Caribbean does not.
Beaches and catamarans exist all over the Caribbean. A sugar railway, a fortress the British lost and took back, and a crater you can walk into do not.
The St Kitts Scenic Railway
The line was laid between 1912 and 1926 to bring cane down to the mill at Basseterre, and it kept doing that until the sugar industry closed in 2005. What is left is thirty miles of narrow-gauge track round the north of the island, run now with double-decker cars, open on top. It crosses steel trestle bridges over the ghauts and the whole thing takes about three hours. It is the only railway still running in the West Indies.
- 1Sugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise Port★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 148 reviews
- 2St Kitts Scenic Train Tour (Hotel or Ship)★★★★★★★★★★ 3.5 · 135 reviews
- 3Saint Kitts Train Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 60 reviews
Brimstone Hill Fortress
Enslaved Africans cut and hauled the stone for this over roughly a century, building a British garrison onto the side of a volcanic dome above Sandy Point. The French took it after a month-long siege in 1782 and handed it back the next year. From the Citadel you can see Sint Eustatius, Saba and Nevis on a clear day, and the walls are still standing at their full height.
- 1Scenic Romney Manor & Timothy Hill or Panoramic Brimstone Hill★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 125 reviews
- 2St Kitts Sightseeing Tour to Brimstone Hill Fortress with Beach Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 31 reviews
- 3Brimstone Hill Fortress & Beach Shore Excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 5 reviews
The crater at the top of Liamuiga
The Caribs called the island Liamuiga, fertile land, and the mountain kept the name when the island did not. The summit is 1,156 metres and the crater at the top is about a kilometre wide with its own forest growing inside it. The route up goes through rainforest on a track that turns to mud and roots, and most people take rope for the last section down to the rim.
- 1Liamuiga Natural Farm Tour – St.Kitts’ Coffee Farm★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 196 reviews
- 2St.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 194 reviews
- 3Volcano Hike to Mt. Liamuiga the Highest Peak★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 108 reviews
By place, from the port outwards
Clockwise out of Basseterre, and you are back for dinner.
The newest reviews from both islands.
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