St Kitts fills your days. Nevis empties them.
Which volcano hike actually reaches the crater rim. What the Sugar Train costs once the ship crowd has taken its seats. Whether a day across The Narrows beats another afternoon on the peninsula. Reviews of every tour you can book on the two islands.
The crater, the cane rails, the island loop and the crossing.
Four bookings a first week on St Kitts and Nevis is usually built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first day outFull Island Panoramic Tour of St KittsBrimstone Hill, Timothy Hill and the black-sand Atlantic side, in one circuit of the island.
02The hard morningSt.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)Rainforest to the crater rim of Mount Liamuiga. Leave at dawn; cloud sits on the caldera by mid-morning.
03The cane railsSugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortTwo hours on the last working railway in the West Indies, over the trestles the sugar trains used.
04The crossingNevis Getaway with Free Time at Pinney’s BeachAcross The Narrows for three miles of sand at Pinney’s and a great deal less traffic.
Crater rim, rainforest floor, or an estate track with an engine under you.
Everything on St Kitts that is worth doing sits above the coast road. Three ways to get up there, what it costs to start each one, and how hard the day actually is.
Basseterre, the peninsula, the mountain, and Nevis across the channel.
A capital you can walk in a morning, a seven-mile spit with a different sea on each side, a dormant volcano with a lake in its crater, and a second island two miles off the end of it. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
The days out that sell out first on St Kitts and Nevis.
Every tour reviewed on both islands →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the two islands, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kitts
Circle St. Kitts with guides such as Annie, Joseph, Spooney, and Chiefy, stopping at Brimstone Hill Fortress, Black Rocks, Romney Manor, Timothy Hill, Wingfield Estate, and Basseterre landmarks. Hotel or port pickup, transport, and entry fees are included. Expect a fast, scenic overview rather than long visits.
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
Half of St Kitts is only reachable with a hull under you.
The reef off Frigate Bay, the shipwrecks in the shallows, the sail across to Nevis and back before the wind gets up. Book the crossing days early; there are only so many boats.
Nevis is two miles off St Kitts and runs at half the speed.
One road rings the island. Pinney’s Beach is three miles of sand with a handful of bars on it, Charlestown still fits inside a morning, and the sulphur springs at Bath have been running since 1778. Most people cross for a day and wish they had booked two.
Basseterre empties the hour the ships leave. Use that.
The Circus and its green clocktower, Independence Square, the market at the bottom of Bay Road, and Port Zante quiet again by four. Walk the capital in a morning; eat in it properly after dark.
Every Basseterre day out →
Brimstone Hill is a fortress cut from volcanic rock, eight hundred feet up.
Enslaved Africans quarried and carried the stone for more than a century of building. The Citadel sits on the shoulder of the hill above the west coast, the guns still point out to sea, and from the parade ground on a clear morning you can count Statia, Saba, St Barths and Nevis.
- 1Scenic Romney Manor & Timothy Hill or Panoramic Brimstone Hillfrom $56
- 2St Kitts Sightseeing Tour to Brimstone Hill Fortress with Beach Visitfrom $69
- 3Brimstone Hill Fortress & Beach Shore Excursionfrom $75
What a day on St Kitts and Nevis actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. The island is small and the prices are not, so the cheap end is worth reading first.
Airport runs, a walk around the capital, an afternoon on Frigate Bay and the cheapest of the Nevis crossings.
Where nearly everything sits: the island circuit, the volcano, the Sugar Train and the catamaran days.
Private drivers for a full day, chartered boats, and the small-group climbs that cap at a handful of people.
Three things that only happen on these two islands.
Beaches and rum shops run the length of the Caribbean. A working cane railway, a crater you can walk into, and a road with a different ocean on each shoulder do not.
The St Kitts Scenic Railway
Thirty miles of three-foot-gauge track were laid around the north of the island between 1912 and 1926 to carry cane down to the factory at Basseterre. Sugar stopped in 2005; the railway did not. Double-decker carriages now run the coastal half of the loop, out over steel trestles that cross the ghauts at a height no engineer would sign off today.
- 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
Mount Liamuiga
The Kalinago name means fertile island, and the mountain kept it after the British renamed everything else on the map. It last erupted roughly eighteen hundred years ago and now holds a crater a quarter of a mile across with a lake at the bottom of it. The climb is four hours on a root-and-mud track through rainforest, and the final pitch is a rope-assisted scramble.
- 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
- 3Hike St. Kitts: Highest peak Mount Liamuiga Volcano★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 136 reviews
The Southeast Peninsula
A single road runs seven miles down to Major’s Bay, and for most of it the Caribbean is on one shoulder and the Atlantic on the other. Timothy Hill is the pull-in where both show up in the same photograph. Cockleshell at the far end faces Nevis across the channel, and the water on that side is flat enough to swim all afternoon.
- 1Cockleshell beach excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 27 reviews
- 2Cockleshell: Beach Excursion, Snorkeling, and Scenic Views★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 16 reviews
- 3Private airport Transfer from St. Kitts Marriott & Frigate Bay.★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 10 reviews
Four bookings on these islands that will not wait.
Most of St Kitts can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on one departure a day, a tide, a closing time or a cruise manifest, and none of them care what time your flight lands.
- 01St.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)One departure a day, before dawn, and it does not run in heavy rain. A short trip gets one real attempt at the crater.
- 02Sugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortThe railcars have a fixed number of seats and both circuits sell to the cruise terminal first. On a two-ship day there is nothing left at the counter.
- 03St. Kitts Full-Day Catamaran Cruise to NevisThe Nevis catamarans sail to a tide and a timetable rather than to demand. Miss the departure and the next one is tomorrow.
- 04Scenic Romney Manor & Timothy Hill or Panoramic Brimstone HillThe fortress shuts in the late afternoon and the light goes off the guns well before that. It is not a stop you can bolt onto the end of a beach day.
On a two-ship day, St Kitts is booked out by nine in the morning.
A big cruise call puts several thousand people on the quay at Basseterre inside an hour, and the island tours, the railway and the catamarans sell to them first. The answer is not to dodge those days. It is to be booked before them, and to spend the middle of the day somewhere the tour buses do not turn round.
By place — St Kitts, the peninsula and Nevis
By kind of day — trail, deck, saddle or steering wheel
Basseterre, the circuit, the fortress, the mountain, the peninsula, then Nevis.
The newest St Kitts and Nevis tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Private transfer from Park Hyatt & water taxi to R.L.B Airport
Read our review →
St.Kitts Sea Glass & Volcanic Black Sand Beach Day
Read our review →
St.Kitts Sugar Train Tour / Pick up & Drop-Off Included
Read our review →
St Kitts Volcano Hiking and Sightseeing Excursion
Read our review →
Hike St. Kitts: Sea Glass Discovery at Volcanic Beach
Read our review →
