A Complete 5-Day Plan for The Bahamas

This five-day route is for travelers who want the capital’s culture and then a real taste of the Out Islands, with the Bahamas’ famous Exuma water as the climax. The pace is relaxed: two nights in Nassau, three on Great Exuma, and only one travel day. You will use Nassau’s jitney buses and the harbor water taxi, one short domestic flight, a rental car or taxis on Great Exuma, and a full-day boat tour through the cays.

Days 1-2: Nassau’s museums, rum and Cabbage Beach

Spend your first day on the stories behind the beaches. The Junkanoo World Museum & Arts Centre displays the towering crepe-paper and cardboard costumes from the Boxing Day and New Year’s parades, and it is the closest you get to Junkanoo outside December. Walk uphill to the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas in Villa Doyle, where the collection runs from Amos Ferguson’s folk paintings to sharp contemporary work. Finish at John Watling’s Distillery on the Buena Vista Estate, an 18th-century property where the tour is short, … read more 👉

This five-day route is for travelers who want the capital’s culture and then a real taste of the Out Islands, with the Bahamas’ famous Exuma water as the climax. The pace is relaxed: two nights in Nassau, three on Great Exuma, and only one travel day. You will use Nassau’s jitney buses and the harbor water taxi, one short domestic flight, a rental car or taxis on Great Exuma, and a full-day boat tour through the cays.

Days 1-2: Nassau’s museums, rum and Cabbage Beach

Spend your first day on the stories behind the beaches. The Junkanoo World Museum & Arts Centre displays the towering crepe-paper and cardboard costumes from the Boxing Day and New Year’s parades, and it is the closest you get to Junkanoo outside December. Walk uphill to the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas in Villa Doyle, where the collection runs from Amos Ferguson’s folk paintings to sharp contemporary work. Finish at John Watling’s Distillery on the Buena Vista Estate, an 18th-century property where the tour is short, the tasting bar is the point, and the veranda is the best place downtown for a late-afternoon drink.

Day two is a beach day. Take the water taxi across the harbor to Paradise Island and follow a public access path to Cabbage Beach, roughly 3 kilometers of soft white sand on the north shore. Walk east, away from the resort end, and the crowd thins fast. Watch the flags; the surf here can pull hard.

Days 3-5: Great Exuma, the cays and Little Exuma

Fly from Nassau to Great Exuma (about 40 minutes) and settle into George Town, a small harbor town on Elizabeth Harbour with Stocking Island sitting just offshore. Spend the first afternoon slowly: a grocery run, conch at a roadside stand, a swim. You need the rest, because day four is long.

The full-day speedboat tour runs north up the chain to Staniel Cay, a tiny village with an airstrip and a yacht club, and on to Big Major Cay, home of the Swimming Pigs that paddle out to every boat. The better tours continue into the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, protected since 1958 and closed to fishing, so snorkel stops there show reef fish in numbers you rarely see elsewhere in the country. Expect 8 to 10 hours on the water and pack reef-safe sunscreen.

On your last day, drive south over the bridge to Little Exuma, a quiet strip of settlements, and walk out onto Tropic of Cancer Beach, a sweep of pale sand and shallow turquoise water that sits almost exactly on the line of latitude. Stay until the light goes gold, then fly out the next morning.

For a quiet final morning, rent a kayak and paddle into Moriah Harbour Cay National Park, a protected maze of mangroves, dunes and sandbars between Great and Little Exuma.