This five-day route is for travelers who want both halves of the country: the green, steep, lived-in main island of St. Vincent and the far southern Grenadines, where the water turns the color of mouthwash. The pace is moderate, with one long boat day in the middle and no back-to-back travel marathons. You will use St. Vincent’s shared minibuses (“vans”), the Kingstown to Bequia ferry, the slower inter-island ferry south to Union Island, a shared boat tour into the marine park and, to save a day at the end, a short domestic flight back to Argyle.
Days 1-2: Kingstown and the Leeward Coast
Sleep two nights in
Kingstown. It is a working port town of stone arcades, market stalls and van conductors shouting destinations, and it makes a practical base because every leeward van starts here. Spend the first morning at
Fort Charlotte, finished in 1806 on a ridge about 200 meters above the harbor. Several of its cannons point inland, because the British feared the Garifuna in the hills as much as …
read more 👉This five-day route is for travelers who want both halves of the country: the green, steep, lived-in main island of St. Vincent and the far southern Grenadines, where the water turns the color of mouthwash. The pace is moderate, with one long boat day in the middle and no back-to-back travel marathons. You will use St. Vincent’s shared minibuses (“vans”), the Kingstown to Bequia ferry, the slower inter-island ferry south to Union Island, a shared boat tour into the marine park and, to save a day at the end, a short domestic flight back to Argyle.
Days 1-2: Kingstown and the Leeward Coast
Sleep two nights in Kingstown. It is a working port town of stone arcades, market stalls and van conductors shouting destinations, and it makes a practical base because every leeward van starts here. Spend the first morning at Fort Charlotte, finished in 1806 on a ridge about 200 meters above the harbor. Several of its cannons point inland, because the British feared the Garifuna in the hills as much as any French fleet. The view takes in the town, the Grenadines in a line to the south, and on clear days Bequia’s outline. Drop down for the afternoon to the Botanical Gardens St. Vincent, laid out in 1765, where a breadfruit tree grown from Captain Bligh’s 1793 cargo still stands near the parrot aviary.
Day 2 is a van ride up the leeward highway, a road of hairpins, black-sand coves and roadside fish fries. Stop first in Barrouallie, a fishing village where boats still head out after pilot whales and blackfish, and where a carved petroglyph stone sits in the village. Continue to Wallilabou Heritage Park, the bay used as Port Royal in Pirates of the Caribbean, with leftover set facades and a small waterfall pool inland. Then head to Dark View Falls, two cascades reached across a bamboo bridge and a 10 to 15 minute rainforest walk, cold enough to make you gasp. Finish at Richmond Beach, the dark-sand end of the road beneath La Soufrière’s flank. Vans from Kingstown toward Chateaubelair take about 1.5 hours and cost roughly EC$7 to 8 (US$2.60 to 3); start early, because return vans thin out by late afternoon.Day 3: Bequia
Take a morning ferry (about 1 hour, EC$25 to 30, US$9 to 11) to Bequia and settle in Port Elizabeth for the night. This is a single day on the island, so keep it simple: browse the model-boat workshops, where builders carve scale schooners from local cedar, then walk the waterfront path over the headland to Princess Margaret Beach for a long afternoon swim. Dinner along Admiralty Bay, with yacht masts lit up across the anchorage, is the most relaxed evening of the trip.Days 4-5: Union Island, Tobago Cays and Salt Whistle Bay
Day 4 is the long boat ride south on the inter-island ferry, roughly 3 to 4 hours from Bequia to Clifton, calling at Canouan and Mayreau on the way. It runs only a few days a week, so build your dates around its timetable. Sleep two nights in Clifton, a scrappy little harbor town full of kitesurfers and boat boys. The rest of Union Island is rugged and dry, with goats on the hillsides and the quiet anchorage of Chatham Bay on the far side.
Day 5 is the reason most people come this far. Join a shared day tour (about EC$160 to 270, US$60 to 100, plus an EC$10 marine park fee) to the Tobago Cays, five uninhabited islets inside Horseshoe Reef. Snorkel with green turtles grazing the seagrass off Baradal, then stop for lunch at Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau, a curved half-moon of sand where a strip of palms only a few dozen meters wide separates calm water from the Atlantic surf. The next morning, fly from Union Island back to Argyle (about 25 minutes) for your connection, or take the ferry north if you have time to spare.
For a final drink in Clifton, take a water taxi to Happy Island, a tiny bar built by hand from piled conch shells on the reef just off the harbor.v2.webp){kind=logo}
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