A volcano, a sugar railway, and two miles of water to Nevis.
What the island circuit actually covers in four hours. Which boat crosses The Narrows with time to swim. Whether the crater hike fits around a ship’s departure. Reviews of every tour you can book on St Kitts and Nevis.
The four days a first trip to St Kitts is usually built on.
A lap of the island, the crater, the old cane railway and the crossing to Nevis. What each costs, and what the people who booked it said afterwards.
01The peak daySt.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)Up through the forest to the crater rim of Mount Liamuiga, 3,792 feet above the cane. Parties leave before dawn, because the summit clouds over by late morning.
02The orientation lapFull Island Panoramic Tour of St KittsThe whole island in an open bus — Timothy Hill, Black Rocks, the windward coast. Do it on the first day and everything afterwards has a place on the map.
03The sugar railwaySugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortThree hours on the last cane line in the West Indies, upstairs on the double-decker cars, north coast on one side and the sea on the other.
04The crossing to NevisSt. Kitts: Nevis Getaway with Free Time at Pinney’s BeachTwo miles of water and a slower island: Charlestown’s stone and gingerbread streets, then free time on the sand at Pinney’s Beach.
Open bus, railcar or the fortress road. Three ways to see St Kitts in a day.
The island is sixty-eight square miles and one road runs most of the way round it. How you travel that road is the only real decision of a first day here.
Basseterre, the peninsula, and the island across The Narrows.
The capital and its cruise pier, the beaches down the Southeast Peninsula, a crater above the cane fields, the forest behind it, and the boat to Nevis. Six ways into the two islands, and the best day out in each.
The days out that more travellers take than anything else here.
Every tour we have reviewed on the two islands →The most-taken tours on St Kitts and Nevis, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Full Island Panoramic Tour of St Kitts
This 4 to 5-hour round-island tour with Annie’s Caribbean Tours covers Brimstone Hill, Black Rocks, Romney Manor, Timothy Hill, Wingfield Estate, Bloody Point, and Basseterre. Guides including Annie, Joseph, Spooney, and Chiefy provide commentary, with hotel or port pickup, entrance fees, and an air-conditioned minivan included.
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
Liamuiga Natural Farm Tour – St.Kitts’ Coffee Farm
from $161
7
Self Drive 4×4 Off Road Jeep Wrangler & Beach Chill
from $85
8
St.Kitts Volcano Hike To Mt. Liamuiga (Highest Peak On Island)
from $69
Mount Liamuiga, and the forest you climb through to reach it.
The cone stands 3,792 feet over the cane. The trail starts in old estate land, climbs through rainforest loud with vervet monkeys, and finishes on a crater rim looking down into a bowl of trees. Shorter forest walks cover the same ground without the summit.
The best of St Kitts is half a mile offshore with the engine off.
Catamarans cross The Narrows with lunch and a swim stop off Nevis, snorkellers get the reef and the wrecks along the south coast, and the jet skis run out of Frigate Bay. The Caribbean side is flat most days. The Atlantic side is never flat.
Basseterre: the pier, the Circus, and six hours ashore.
Everything in Basseterre →
Ships tie up at Port Zante and the town starts fifty yards past the gate: the green clocktower at the Circus, Independence Square, a market street that thins out by mid-afternoon. Almost every day out of the capital is back before the horn.
Railcar, or the road round the island
The train takes the north coast on the old cane line and eats half the day; the bus does the full circuit in less and stops where you want photographs. Take the train if you have already done an island lap somewhere else.
What actually fits between the horn blasts
Anything on the Southeast Peninsula or along the north coast fits comfortably inside a port call. The crater hike does not — it is a full day on foot, and nobody holds the gangway for it.
Rum, saltfish and the streets behind Bay Road
A walk through the market end of town and the bars behind Bay Road, where the rum is distilled on the island and goat water turns up on more menus than you would expect.
Nevis is two miles away and runs at half the speed. Go for the day.
One road circles one volcano. Charlestown is a grid of stone and gingerbread verandas, Pinney’s Beach lays three miles of sand under the palms, and the boat over from Basseterre takes about forty-five minutes.
Every Nevis day out →
The price of a day on St Kitts, band by band.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A morning in town or an afternoon on the sand costs less here than the airport taxi does on half the islands around it.
Town walks, beach runs down the peninsula and the short hops out of Port Zante.
The standards: the island circuit, the railway, the crossing to Nevis, a catamaran with lunch on board.
Private guides, chartered boats and the long ATV-and-beach afternoons that take the whole day.
Three things that only happen on St Kitts.
Beaches and rum shops run the length of the Caribbean. A working sugar railway, a fortress built out of a volcano, and a crater you can walk down into do not.
The St Kitts Scenic Railway
Thirty miles of narrow gauge were laid round the north of the island from 1912 to carry cane down to the factory at Basseterre. The sugar industry closed in 2005 and the line survived as the last railway running in the West Indies, taking double-decker cars over steel trestles above the sea and past the estate ruins the track was built to serve.
- 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
Brimstone Hill Fortress
Enslaved Africans cut the stone and hauled it eight hundred feet up a volcanic plug over more than a century of building. The British garrison it protected surrendered to the French in 1782 and had it back a year later. It is a World Heritage site now, and from the bastions you can pick out Saba, St Eustatius and Nevis on a clear morning.
- 1Scenic Romney Manor & Timothy Hill or Panoramic Brimstone Hill★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 125 reviews
- 2St Kitts Sightseeing Tour to Brimstone Hill Fortress with Beach Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 31 reviews
- 3Basseterre: Brimstone Hill Fortress & Beach Shore Excursion★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 · 5 reviews
The Mount Liamuiga crater
The Kalinago called the mountain Liamuiga, fertile land, long before the British renamed it Mount Misery. It has not erupted in around eighteen hundred years, and the crater at the top is a bowl close to a mile across with its own forest growing inside it. Parties leave before six to be on the rim while it is still clear.
- 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
Four bookings on St Kitts that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged from a beach bar the afternoon before. These four run on tides, ship schedules, guide numbers and a mountain that clouds over on its own timetable.
- 01Liamuiga Natural Farm Tour – St.Kitts’ Coffee FarmGuides take small parties and leave before dawn to reach the rim while it is still clear. There is one departure a day and it fills.
- 02Sugar Train Tour & Drinks|Pick-Up &Drop Off From Cruise PortThe railcars run to a timetable built around whichever ships are in port. On a two-ship morning the seats are gone by breakfast.
- 03St. Kitts: Nevis Getaway with Free Time at Pinney’s BeachThe crossing depends on the ferry and the water taxi, and the last boat back over The Narrows is not a negotiation.
- 04St. Kitts Full-Day Catamaran Cruise to NevisOne or two boats sail each afternoon and each takes a fixed number. Add a cruise call and they are spoken for days ahead.
When two ships are in, the island splits in half.
Port Zante can take two large ships at once, and on those mornings the circuit buses, the railway and Brimstone Hill all fill with the same few thousand people. Go the other way: south down the peninsula to the sand, or up into the forest, where nothing docks.
By place — St Kitts and Nevis
By kind of day — boat, trail, rail or road
Three days: a lap of St Kitts, a day on the water, a day on Nevis.
The NarrowsJust reviewed on St Kitts and Nevis.
Everything else added lately →
Tour de Force: Port Zante and Historic Downtown Basseterre
Read our review →
St.Kitts Sugar Train Tour / Pick up & Drop-Off Included
Read our review →
St.Kitts Sea Glass & Volcanic Black Sand Beach Day
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 →
