Averko

Local discovery across the Caribbean

Everything worth knowing, place by place.

Places, events, guides, plans and the people who make them, across 31 Caribbean countries and territories — every listing saying where its details came from.

Browse countries

Everywhere we cover

  • Anguilla

    Anguilla is a low coral island and UK overseas territory in the Leeward Islands, on the Eastern Caribbean dollar. It is flat, dry and about 26 kilometres long, with no rivers and a reputation resting almost entirely on its beaches and its restaurants.

  • Antigua and Barbuda

    Antigua and Barbuda is a two-island state of low limestone and worn volcanic hills, with no rivers and a dry climate that once made rainwater cisterns essential. Antigua's deep natural harbours made it a British naval base for two centuries, and sugar ran the economy until the industry closed in the 1970s. Barbuda, flatter and thinly settled, holds a large frigatebird colony.

  • Aruba

    Aruba lies about 25 kilometres off the Venezuelan coast, outside the hurricane belt, and is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is arid — cactus, divi-divi trees bent flat by the trade winds, and a rocky windward coast quite unlike the calm western beaches.

  • Bahamas

    The Bahamas is an Atlantic archipelago rather than a Caribbean Sea one: around 700 islands and 2,400 cays spread over shallow carbonate banks southeast of Florida, of which roughly 30 are inhabited. Columbus made his first American landfall here in 1492. Tourism and offshore banking now dominate a country where most people live on New Providence.

  • Barbados

    Barbados is the easternmost island in the Caribbean, 34 km long and shaped by coral rather than volcanoes - which is why the west coast is calm and the east coast is Atlantic surf. Bridgetown and its garrison are a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the island is the birthplace of rum.

  • Belize

    Belize sits on the Caribbean coast of Central America, between Mexico and Guatemala, and is the only country in the region with English as its official language. It was British Honduras until 1973 and became independent in 1981. Offshore lies the largest reef system in the Northern Hemisphere; inland are hundreds of Maya sites.

  • British Virgin Islands

    The British Virgin Islands are a UK overseas territory of about sixty islands, using the US dollar. They are among the best known sailing grounds in the world: the Sir Francis Drake Channel gives sheltered line-of-sight passages between islands, which is why so much of the region's charter fleet is based at Tortola.

  • Caribbean Netherlands

    The Caribbean Netherlands is three special municipalities of the Netherlands: Bonaire off the Venezuelan coast, and Saba and Sint Eustatius in the Leeward Islands, several hundred kilometres apart. They use the US dollar. Bonaire is known for shore diving, Saba for a single volcanic peak that is the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

  • Cayman Islands

    The Cayman Islands are a UK overseas territory of three islands south of Cuba, and one of the world's larger financial centres. The Cayman dollar is pegged above the US dollar. Seven Mile Beach runs along the west of Grand Cayman, and the Cayman Trench offshore is the deepest point in the Caribbean Sea.

  • Cuba

    Cuba is the largest and most populous island in the Caribbean, with around 11 million people. Spain held it until 1898, longer than almost anywhere in the Americas, and the 1959 revolution left a one-party state and a largely state-run economy. Its tobacco, grown mainly in Pinar del Rio, is the basis of the world's best-known cigars.

  • Curacao

    Curaçao is the largest of the Dutch Caribbean islands and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Willemstad's harbour district is a UNESCO World Heritage site, its Dutch gabled fronts painted in colours said to date from a governor who blamed his headaches on whitewash glare. Papiamentu is spoken alongside Dutch and English.

  • Dominica

    Dominica is a steep volcanic island in the Lesser Antilles, between the French territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique. It is the youngest island in the chain and still geologically restless, with nine potentially active volcanoes, sulphur vents and hot springs. The interior is mountainous rainforest rather than resort coast, and it is the one island where a Kalinago community still holds its own territory.

  • Dominican Republic

    The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, sharing the island with Haiti. It has the Caribbean's highest mountain, Pico Duarte at 3,098 metres, and its lowest point at Lago Enriquillo. Santo Domingo, founded in the 1490s, is the oldest continuously inhabited European-built city in the Americas, and the country now has the region's largest economy.

  • Grenada

    Grenada is the southernmost of the Windward Islands and also governs Carriacou and Petite Martinique. It is volcanic and wet, with a ridged forest interior and a crater lake near its centre. The economy was built on nutmeg, cocoa and cinnamon, which is why it is known as the Isle of Spice; Hurricane Ivan destroyed most of the nutmeg trees in 2004.

  • Guadeloupe

    Guadeloupe is an overseas department of France in the Leeward Islands, and so part of the European Union — the euro is the currency and French the official language. It is shaped like a butterfly: Basse-Terre to the west is volcanic and mountainous, Grande-Terre to the east is flat limestone with the beaches. La Soufriere, still active, is the highest point in the Lesser Antilles.

  • Guyana

    Guyana lies on the Atlantic shoulder of South America and is the continent's only English-speaking country, tied culturally to the Caribbean rather than Latin America. Around four-fifths is rainforest on the Guiana Shield, while almost all of its 800,000 people live on a narrow coastal plain below sea level, kept dry by seawalls and drainage canals.

  • Haiti

    Haiti occupies the western third of Hispaniola and is the most mountainous country in the Caribbean - its Taino name means land of high mountains. As French Saint-Domingue it was the richest colony in the Americas, built on sugar and enslaved labour, until a revolt made it the world's first Black republic in 1804. Most of its people speak Haitian Creole.

  • Jamaica

    Jamaica is the third-largest island in the Caribbean, a mountainous country of 14 parishes where limestone karst and the Blue Mountains rise steeply behind narrow coastal plains. British sugar plantations shaped its settlement and its people, and independence came in 1962. It gave the world reggae and dancehall, and remains a significant bauxite producer.

  • Martinique

    Martinique is a French overseas department in the Windward Islands, again part of the EU and using the euro. Mount Pelee dominates the north; its 1902 eruption destroyed Saint-Pierre, then the island's principal city, in minutes. The island has a long and closely regulated rum tradition, the only one in the world with an appellation d'origine controlee.

  • Montserrat

    Montserrat is a UK overseas territory on the Eastern Caribbean dollar, and the most unusual entry in the region. The Soufriere Hills volcano began erupting in 1995 and buried Plymouth, the capital; the southern half of the island remains an exclusion zone, and the population lives in the north. It is still called the Emerald Isle for its Irish settlement history.

  • Puerto Rico

    Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, using the dollar, with Spanish and English both official. It is far larger than most of its neighbours: a mountainous interior, a rainforest under federal protection, three bioluminescent bays, and in Old San Juan the oldest European-founded settlement under the US flag.

  • Saint Barthelemy

    Saint-Barthélemy is a small French collectivity of about 25 square kilometres, sold to Sweden in 1784 and bought back in 1878 — the capital is still called Gustavia. It is dry, hilly and heavily oriented towards yachting and luxury tourism, with a working harbour at its centre.

  • Saint Kitts and Nevis

    Saint Kitts and Nevis is a two-island federation in the Leeward Islands, separated by a two-mile channel called The Narrows, and the smallest sovereign state in the Americas by both area and population. Saint Kitts was England's first Caribbean colony in 1624 and both islands ran on sugar until the industry closed in 2005.

  • Saint Lucia

    Saint Lucia is a volcanic island of about 616 square kilometres, its interior steep rainforest and its southwest still geothermally active. Britain and France fought over it repeatedly, which is why English is official but a French-based Creole is widely spoken. It has produced two Nobel laureates, Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott, from a population under 200,000.

  • Saint Martin

    Saint Martin is the French half of an island shared with Dutch Sint Maarten, divided since 1648 and still crossed without a border post. It is a French collectivity using the euro, and the smaller, quieter side of the island, with Marigot as its capital and a long tradition of Creole markets.

  • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a Windward Islands state made up of one mountainous volcanic island and a chain of smaller ones running south towards Grenada, among them Bequia, Mustique, Canouan and Union Island. La Soufriere, at the north of Saint Vincent, erupted explosively in 2021, 1979 and 1902.

  • Sint Maarten

    Sint Maarten is the Dutch half of the island it shares with French Saint Martin, and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is the busier and more developed side, built around Philipsburg, a cruise port and an airport whose approach passes directly over a beach.

  • Suriname

    Suriname is the smallest country in South America and the only one where Dutch is the official language, a legacy of Dutch rule that ended in 1975. Around 90 percent of it is rainforest on the Guiana Shield, and nearly everyone lives on the narrow coastal strip. The population is unusually mixed, with Sranan Tongo as the common tongue.

  • Trinidad and Tobago

    Trinidad and Tobago sits on the South American continental shelf, closer to Venezuela than to the rest of the Caribbean. Oil and natural gas, not tourism, drive its economy. Plantation slavery and later Indian indentureship produced a population split roughly between African and Indian descent, and the steelpan and calypso were invented here.

  • Turks and Caicos Islands

    The Turks and Caicos Islands are a UK overseas territory on the south-eastern end of the Bahamas platform, using the US dollar. Grace Bay on Providenciales is routinely named among the best beaches anywhere, and the islands sit beside a wall that drops over two thousand metres into the Columbus Passage.

  • United States Virgin Islands

    The United States Virgin Islands are an unincorporated US territory of three main islands — Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix — bought from Denmark in 1917, which is why the towns are Charlotte Amalie and Christiansted. Roughly sixty per cent of Saint John is national park.

A guide for every island

Coming up across the islands

Tours and the companies that run them

Buses, taxis and ferries, island by island

  • Anguilla

    Most journeys in Anguilla are by taxi or hire car.

  • Antigua and Barbuda

    Antigua's roads are worked by privately owned minibuses on government-regulated routes, running roughly 5:30am to 6pm between the East and West bus stations in St John's and the villages.

  • Aruba

    Aruba's public buses are run by Arubus, owned by the Government of Aruba, with terminals in Oranjestad and San Nicolas and stops along the hotel strips between them.

  • Bahamas

    Nassau moves on jitneys — privately owned minibuses licensed and given their routes by the Road Traffic Department.

  • Barbados

    Barbados is one of the easiest islands to explore without a car.

  • Belize

    Belize's buses run from town terminals under the Department of Transport, with the Belize City terminal as the hub; a route added in 2024 serves the Coastal Highway villages between Dangriga and Belize City.

  • British Virgin Islands

    The British Virgin Islands are joined by ferry.

  • Caribbean Netherlands

    Three islands, three answers.

  • Cayman Islands

    Grand Cayman's buses are run by the Public Transport Unit, and every route starts and ends at the depot on Edward Street in George Town.

  • Cuba

    Travel between Cuban cities is mostly by coach, and Viazul is the operator visitors use; Varadero has its own Viazul terminal serving the main destinations.

  • Curacao

    Autobusbedrijf Curaçao, owned outright by the government, runs thirty-five buses over twenty-one routes a day, with terminals at Punda and Otrobanda in Willemstad.

  • Dominica

    Dominica's public transport is entirely private: minibuses with number plates starting H link Roseau and Portsmouth to the villages, leaving when they fill rather than to a timetable.

  • Dominican Republic

    Santo Domingo runs on the state Metro and the Teleférico cable car, with OMSA buses working fixed corridors across the capital using standard, articulated and bi-articulated vehicles.

  • Grenada

    Grenada's minibuses are privately run and start from the terminal on Melville Street in St George's, with each route's destination on a sticker at the stand.

  • Guadeloupe

    The Karu'lis network covers Pointe-à-Pitre, Les Abymes and Baie-Mahault, organised by the Syndicat Mixte des Transports and carrying around three million passengers a year.

  • Guyana

    Georgetown and the coast run on privately owned minibuses working numbered zones.

  • Haiti

    Haiti is not a place to get around casually right now.

  • Jamaica

    Kingston and the corporate area run on JUTC buses, and licensed route taxis and minibuses cover the rest of the island.

  • Martinique

    Martinique runs its public transport under one authority, Martinique Transport, based in Fort-de-France.

  • Montserrat

    The passenger ferry to Montserrat is discontinued until further notice.

  • Puerto Rico

    San Juan's public transport is run by the Autoridad de Transporte Integrado: the Tren Urbano light rail, sixteen stations open 5:30am to 11:30pm every day of the year, and thirty-two AMA bus routes.

  • Saint Barthelemy

    Saint-Barthélemy's tourism board lists car hire, scooters, taxis and boats as the ways to get about, and calls car hire the most popular of them, with agencies at the airport and in Gustavia.

  • Saint Kitts and Nevis

    Privately run omnibuses — minibuses licensed by the government — and taxis cover both islands, and ferries join them.

  • Saint Lucia

    Saint Lucia's minibuses are privately owned but licensed and regulated by the Road Transport Board, a statutory body that reviews routes, stands and fares.

  • Saint Martin

    The Collectivité runs a local bus circuit around Concordia at a flat €1 a trip, leaving the Gare routière from 5:30am; a wider island-wide scheme was still being worked out with Sint Maarten's transport ministry at the end of 2024.

  • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

    Shared minibuses are how Saint Vincent moves, radiating from the terminal at the New Kingstown Fish Market.

  • Sint Maarten

    Privately run minibuses work the corridors between Philipsburg, Simpson Bay and Maho, frequently but to no published timetable, and the fares are low.

  • Suriname

    The state operator NVB runs more than sixty bus routes across eight districts — Paramaribo, Wanica, Para, Saramacca, Sipaliwini, Brokopondo, Marowijne and Nickerie — and boat services in Marowijne, Commewijne and Brokopondo.

  • Trinidad and Tobago

    Public buses on both islands are run by PTSC from the Railway Buildings on South Quay, Port of Spain — the hub everyone calls City Gate.

  • Turks and Caicos Islands

    Getting about the Turks and Caicos means a hire car, a taxi, a scooter or a bicycle — those are what the Tourist Board lists for the islands.

  • United States Virgin Islands

    VITRAN, part of the territory's Department of Public Works, runs the public buses on St Thomas, St Croix and St John.

Your business, where people are already looking

List your business on Averko for free: a page that reads like the business you run, with bookings and questions in one inbox.

List your business, free · See what a business gets