Queen's Park Savannah
Once part of a sugar plantation, the Savannah is a public park encircled by a 3.7km perimeter road that locals call the world’s largest roundabout. In the early evening when the scorching heat subsides, the grassy center is taken up with games of cricket or football, while kids fly kites and joggers crowd the perimeter path and vendors sell cold coconut water.

Port of Spain
Spreading back from the Gulf of Paria and cradled by the Northern Range foothills, Port of Spain should be a beautiful city. It does have its aesthetic highlights, including a lovely central green space, the Queen’s Park Savannah, and a generous smattering of Hansel-and-Gretel fretworked buildings. But concrete is fast replacing the traditional wood, most of the downtown waterfront is hidden behind grimy warehouses and the relentless traffic is gridlocked. Nonetheless, the explosive development of recent years has done much to make Port of Spain the absorbing place it is today, with an urban insouciance and metropolitan verve that set it apart from the average Caribbean capital. This isn’t a city that kowtows to the tourist dollar, and it’s all the richer for it. There may not be many designated ‘sights’ to tick off, but there’s plenty of atmosphere in the ruler-straight downtown streets, with their market stalls and shady squares, while the outlying neighbourhoods of St James and Woodbrook harbour a host of restaurants and bars. And during Carnival season, huge fetes rock all corners, steel-pan music fills the air around the pan yards and the atmosphere is electric. This buzzing city will school you on the most comprehensive partying in the world.
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Magnificent Seven
Along the west side of the Queen’s Park Savannah are the Magnificent Seven, a line of eccentric and ornate colonial buildings constructed in the early 20th century, and now in various states of repair. From south to north, they are Queen’s Royal College; Hayes Court; Mille Fleurs; Roomor; the Catholic Archbishop’s Residence ; White Hall; and Stollmeyer’s Castle.

Emperor Valley Zoo
Just north of Queen’s Park Savannah is the 2.5-hectare Emperor Valley Zoo, which opened in 1952. Though small, the zoo has some interesting residents, including indigenous red howler monkeys, ocelots and various snakes including an anaconda found in central Trinidad. A newly landscaped section holds sea otters, flamingos and a butterfly park, while giraffes, warthogs and Bengal tigers are the newest residents.

Botanical Gardens
Resplendent with exotic trees and plants, and networked by gentle paths, the Botanical Gardens date from 1818. A graceful mansion built in 1875, the adjacent President’s House (closed to the public), is slated for major repairs, its west wing having collapsed in early 2010.

National Museum & Art Gallery
Housed in a classic colonial building, the dusty historical exhibits range from Amerindian settlers to African slaves and indentured Indians. There are also geological displays and explanations of the technology behind oil exploration. The rotating collection of artwork displayed on the top floor gives an excellent introduction to the Trinbago art scene, with pieces from T&T’s best-known artists.

Independence Square
The hustle and bustle of downtown culminates along Independence Sq, two parallel streets that flank a central promenade. The commanding 1836 Roman Catholic Cathedral caps the promenade’s eastern end; at its western end, past the high-rise blocks of the Nicholas and Central Bank towers, and the statue of cricket hero Brian Lara, the square feeds onto Wrightson Rd, the coastal highway.

Waterfront Park
Off Wrightson Rd opposite Independence Sq, the swanky new Waterfront Park is overlooked by high-rise offices and the Hyatt hotel. Though a bit sterile, with its could-be-anywhere waterfalls and manicured landscaping, the waterside promenade does allow you to get close to the gulf, and is a popular liming spot come evening.

Macqueripe Beach
Macqueripe is a small bay in Chaguaramas, within easy reach of Port of Spain. It’s not a stretch-of-white-sand kind of beach, but the water is usually calm and is surrounded by forested area.
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Chaguaramas
West of Port of Spain sits the Chaguaramas area, which is known for beautiful views and a relaxing atmosphere. Hikers flock to this region for natural sites such as the Blue Basin Waterfall or Macqueripe Beach.
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Asa Wright Nature Centre
A former cocoa and coffee plantation transformed into an 80-hectare nature reserve, blows the minds of bird-watchers, and makes a worthwhile trip even if you can’t tell a parrot from a parakeet. Located amid the rainforest of the Northern Range, the centre has a lodge catering to birding tour groups, a research station for biologists and a series of hiking trails. Day visitors can only explore on a guided tour (10:30am and 1:30pm); reservations should be made at least 24 hours in advance.
Bird species found at the centre include blue-crowned motmots, chestnut woodpeckers, channel-billed toucans, blue-headed parrots, 14 species of hummingbird and numerous raptors. The sanctuary is also home to a natural swimming pool and to the elusive nocturnal guacharo (oilbird). To protect the oilbirds, tours are limited.
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Maracas Bay
Maracas Bay has Trinidad’s most popular beach. The wide, white-sand beach, thick with palm trees contrasting against the backdrop of verdant mountains, remains an irresistible lure for both locals and travellers.
Despite the curving headland, the sand is often pounded by waves that serve up good bodysurfing. There are lifeguards, changing rooms (TT$1, open 10am to 6pm), showers, picnic shelters and huts selling cold beers and shark (or the more ecologically sound kingfish) and bake. On weekends the beach gets pretty crowded, but during the week it can feel almost deserted.
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Las Cuevas
Quieter and less commercial than Maracas Bay, Las Cuevas is another beautiful bay, its wide sweep of sand overhung by cliffs and forest. There’s usually good surfing at its west end, and calmer conditions at its centre, where lifeguards patrol. The car park above the sand has changing rooms (TT$1, open 10am to 6pm) and a restaurant serving cold drinks, beers and basic fish or chicken lunches. Take repellent, as sand-flies can be bad here.
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Caroni Bird Sanctuary
Caroni Bird Sanctuary is the roosting site for thousands of scarlet ibis, the national bird of Trinidad and Tobago. In the late afternoon the birds fly in to roost in the swamp’s mangroves, giving the trees the appearance of being abloom with brilliant scarlet blossoms. Even if you’re not an avid bird-watcher, the sight of the ibis flying over the swamp, glowing almost fluorescent red in the final rays of the evening sun, is not to be missed.
Long, flat-bottomed motorboats, some holding up to 30 passengers, pass slowly through the swamp’s channels. The sanctuary is off the Uriah Butler Hwy, 14km south of Port of Spain; the turn-off is marked. Many guesthouses and hotels in Port of Spain also arrange trips; a taxi will cost around TT$100.
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Blanchisseuse
The road narrows east of Maracas Bay, ending at the tiny village of Blanchisseuse (blan-she-shuhze), where the beautiful craggy coastline is dotted with weekend homes. The three beaches aren’t the best for swimming, especially in the fall and winter, but the surfing can be pretty good and it’s the starting point for some great hikes, especially the two-hour walk to spectacular and completely undeveloped Paria Bay, which has a waterfall just inland.

La Brea Pitch Lake
Once thought of by the Amerindians as a punishment of the gods, this slowly bubbling black ‘lake’ is perhaps Trinidad’s greatest oddity. The 40-hectare expanse of asphalt is around 75m deep at its center, where hot bitumen is continuously replenished from a subterranean fault. One of only three asphalt lakes in the world, it has the single-largest supply of natural bitumen, and as much as 300 tonnes are extracted daily. The lake’s surface looks like a clay tennis court covered with wrinkled, elephant-like skin; tour guides sagely take you across via the solid parts. High heels are not recommended. During the rainy season, people sit in its warm sulphurous pools, said to have healing qualities. A visitor centre gives some background on the history of the lake.
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The Cocal & Nariva Swamp
Running parallel to the beach, the Manzanilla–Mayaro Rd makes for a beautiful drive. It passes through the Cocal, a thick forest of coconut palms whose nuts are shipped all around the island, and which harbor some interesting birds, including red-chested macaws.
Inland of the Cocal, the Ramsar-protected Nariva Swamp covers some 6000 hectares of freshwater wetland. To fully appreciate the area’s beauty, book a spot on a kayak tour (US$100-150).

Manzanilla Beach
Deserted most of the year, except for holidays and weekends, when people flood in to Manzanilla and Mayaro for beachside relaxation, packing coolers with food and splashing about in the gently shelving waters.

Mayaro Beach
Similar to Manzanilla, this stretch is deserted most of the year, except for holidays and weekends, when people flood in for beachside relaxation, packing coolers with food and splashing about in the gently shelving waters.

Toco
Tiny Toco is an attractively battered fishing village of weathered wooden homes. From the main road, Galera Rd heads toward the beach, a pretty stretch of sand and calm water, with drinks and snacks sold from a couple of stalls. The road ends at the lighthouse that marks Galera Point, from which you can see the blue Caribbean sea meeting the green Atlantic.

Grand Riviere
The closest the northeast gets to a resort town, Grand Riviere is still a far cry from most Caribbean holiday spots. It’s a quiet and peaceful place, rich in natural attractions, from a stunning beach where leatherbacks lay eggs to surrounding rainforest, studded with waterfalls and hiking trails and offering plenty of good bird-watching. A few small-scale resorts have sprung up to cater to lovers of the outdoors, and the village is a fantastic place to get away from it all. The long, wide beach shelves steeply down to turbulent waters, but there’s calmer swimming to be had at the eastern end, where a clear river flows into the sea.

Arima
Located about 18 miles east of Port of Spain is the town and region of Arima, where several natural attractions are located, including Dunston Cave, the Aripo Caves and Asa Wright Nature Centre, a reserve that has an old plantation house and 700 acres of land for hiking and bird-watching.

Store Bay Beach
You’ll find white sands and good year-round swimming at Store Bay, a five-minute walk from the airport. It’s also the main departure point for glass-bottom boat trips to the Buccoo Reef, with hawkers offering these and rides on Jet Skis or banana boats, and renting umbrellas and sun loungers. Facilities include showers/bathrooms (TT$5) and food outlets selling delicious local lunches. Great for families.

Pigeon Point
You have to pay to get access to Pigeon Point, the fine dining of Tobago’s beaches, with landscaped grounds, bars, restaurants, toilets and showers spread along plenty of beachfront. The postcard-perfect, palm-fringed beach has powdery white sands and milky aqua water; around the headland, the choppy waters are perfect for windsurfing and kitesurfing with Radical Watersports.

Crown Point
Spread over Tobago’s southwest tip, Crown Point is the island’s tourist epicentre, offering a relatively wide range of accommodations, restaurants and some nightlife. The attractive beaches and extensive services make many tourists stay put, but anyone wanting a deeper appreciation of Tobago’s charms should plan to push eastward to explore other parts of the island.

Buccoo Reef
Stretching offshore between Pigeon Point and Buccoo Bay, the extensive Buccoo Reef was designated as a marine park in 1973 and a Ramsar site in 2006. The fringing reef boasts five reef flats separated by deep channels. The sheer array of flora and fauna – dazzling sponges, hard corals and tropical fish – makes marine biologists giddy. However, despite the efforts of conservation groups, Buccoo Reef has unfortunately been battered by too much use and not enough protection.
Glass-bottom-boat reef tours are an accessible way to explore Tobago’s incredible treasure. Tours leave from Store Bay, Pigeon Point and the village of Buccoo. Most operators charge US$20 per person for a two-hour trip. The boats pass over the reef (much of which is just a meter or two beneath the surface), stop for snorkelling and end with a swim in the Nylon Pool, a calm, shallow area with a sandy bottom and clear turquoise waters. All the operators are pretty similar, often playing loud soca and selling drinks on board; you’ll be repeatedly approached by touts when on Store Bay beach.

Buccoo
Though its narrow strip of white sand is monopolized by fishing boats at the village end, Buccoo’s sweeping palm-backed bay is pretty spectacular, though it’s more a place to hang out or take a horse ride than throw down your towel. The tiny village itself offers a taste of true local flavor: friendly folks who define laid-back, breath-taking sunsets over the bay, and the infamous Sunday School party every week, staged at the incongruously grand new beach facility.

Mt Irvine Beach
This pretty public beach, 200m north of Mt Irvine Bay Hotel, has sheltered picnic tables and changing rooms, plus a good beachside restaurant, roti shacks and plenty of shade trees. Surfers migrate here from December to March. You can rent sun loungers, kayaks and surfboards on the beach. Good for families.

Stone Haven Bay Beach
The next beach northeast of Mt Irvine, this fabulous sweep of coarse yellow sand offers some good swimming and bodyboarding. A couple of large-scale hotels overlook the sand, one of which has a beach bar selling lunch and drinks; the eastern end has calmer waters.

Turtle Beach
Another long stretch of yellow-brown sand, with wave-whipped waters shelving sharply off from the beach, this is also one of Tobago’s main nesting sites for leatherback turtles. A couple of tour companies offer turtle-watching tours in the March–August season.

Castara
About a 45-minute drive from Plymouth, Castara is a working fishing village that’s popular with tourists not wanting the inundated Crown Point scene. People love the wide, sandy beach, relaxed atmosphere and picturesque setting, but the village is on the cusp of feeling overcrowded itself during high season. Snorkelling is good in the calm Heavenly Bay to the right of the main beach.

Englishman's Bay Beach
A superb undeveloped beach shaded by stands of bamboo and coconut palms, which draws snorkelers to its gentle waters – a coral reef lies 20m offshore.

Parlatuvier
A tiny fishing village on a striking circular bay. On the hillside just before the village, get postcard-perfect views of the horseshoe bay below from the car park adjacent to Glasgow’s Bar.

Tobago Forest Reserve
The paved Roxborough–Parlatuvier Rd crosses the island from Roxborough to Bloody Bay, curving through the Tobago Forest Reserve, established in 1765 and the oldest such reserve in the Caribbean. The 30-minute drive through the reserve passes pretty valleys and mountain views, and is one of the most scenic on the island.
A number of trailheads lead off the main road into the rainforest, where there’s excellent bird-watching. Three-quarters of the way from Roxborough, at Gilpin Trace, authorized guides charge TT$160 for a 1½-hour walk, or TT$240 for a two-hour hike to the Main Ridge lookout hut, which affords scenic views of Bloody Bay and the offshore Sisters Rocks. All guides provide interesting commentary on the forest ecosystem and inhabitants, and can lend you rubber boots when it’s muddy. For the best birding, aim to arrive at 9am.

Scarborough
Scarborough is the island’s only city, a crowded port with bustling one-way streets and congested traffic. Tobagonians come here to bank, pay bills or go shopping, and though there are some good places to grab a bite and a neat public market, most visitors will want to push onward.
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Argyle Falls
Just west of Roxborough, the triple-tiered Argyle Falls (admission TT$40; 7am-5:30pm) are a far busier affair; go early to skip crowds. On top of admission, you pay one of the resident guides US$10 to lead you on the 20-minute hike up to the falls. Guides swarm the entrance; official guides wear khaki uniforms and carry ID. At 54m, this is Tobago’s highest waterfall, cascading down four distinct levels, each with its own pool of spring water.

Speyside
The small fishing village of Speyside fronts Tyrrel’s Bay, and attracts divers and birders. It’s the jumping-off point for excursions to uninhabited Little Tobago island, a bird sanctuary 2km offshore. Protected waters, high visibility, abundant coral and diverse marine life make for choice diving. Non-divers can take glass-bottom boat/snorkel tours. Speyside funnels visitors into high-end, diver-oriented hotels much more than its neighbour Charlotteville, where mixing with the locals is more of a possibility. Above town, the off-road lookout has panoramic views out over the islands and reef-studded waters

Little Tobago
Also known as Bird of Paradise Island (though it isn’t home to any of the eponymous birds), Little Tobago was the site of a cotton plantation during the late 1800s, and is now an important seabird sanctuary that offers rich pickings for bird-watchers. Red-billed tropic birds, magnificent frigate birds, brown boobies, Audubon’s shearwaters, laughing gulls and sooty terns are some of the species found here. The hilly, arid island, which averages just 1.5km in width, has a couple of short hiking trails with captivating views.
Several operators run glass-bottom-boat trips for US$25. The trip to Little Tobago, a 15-minute crossing, includes bird-watching on the island and snorkelling at Angel Reef. Masks and fins are provided. The diving at Little Tobago is some of the region’s best. Several dive shops operate in the village

Charlotteville
A delightful fishing village nestled in aquamarine Man of War Bay. This secluded town accepts its trickle of off-the-beaten-track tourists with mostly jovial spirits and occasionally apathy. It’s more lively than Speyside, and tourist services include a sprinkling of places to stay and eat.

Man of War Bay Beach
The large, horseshoe-shaped Man of War Bay is fringed by a palm-studded brown-sand beach with good swimming. Roughly in the middle of the beach, you’ll find changing facilities (TT$1) and the Suckhole beach bar. The pier towards the eastern end is a nice spot for fishing or sunset-watching.

Pirate’s Bay Beach
Walk to the north end of the village, and take the dirt track winding up and around the cliff, and a 10-minute walk brings you to the top of the concrete steps that descend to Pirate’s Bay, which offers excellent snorkelling and fantastic beach liming, with locals and visitors making a day of it with coolers and games of beach football. There are no facilities at this secluded beach, so bring your own drinks and food. If you don’t fancy walking, ask one of the Man of War Bay fishermen to transport you there and back.