A spate of resort developments on St Lucia has made this high, green island one of the Caribbean's trendy package-tour destinations, but it's still a long way from being sanitised and overdeveloped. Bananas are still bigger business than tourism in this archetypal island paradise.

Much of the island is rural: small coastal fishing villages give way to a hinterland of banana and coconut plantations folded within deep valleys topped by rich, mountainous jungle. The rugged terrain continues beneath the sea in a diving heaven of underwater mountains, caves and drop-offs.

Its most dramatic scenery is in the south, where the twin volcanic peaks of the Pitons rise sharply from the shoreline to form distinctive landmarks. The coastline is pocketed with secluded coves and beaches made for one (or, naturally, at sunset, for two).

Full country name: Saint Lucia
Area: 616 sq km
Population: 156,260
Capital City: Castries
People: African (90%), mixed descent (6%), European and East Indian (4%)
Language: English
Religion: Roman Catholic (90%), Protestant (7%), Anglican (3%)
Government: independent republic within the British Commonwealth
Head of State: Governor General Dame Pearlette Louisy
Head of Government: Prime Minister Kenny Anthony
GDP: US$656 million
GDP per capita: US$4,300
Annual Growth: 2.9%
Major Industries: Bananas, coconuts, cocoa, assembly of electronic components, clothing, tourism.
Major Trading Partners: USA, Caricom (Caribbean community) countries, UK, Japan, Canada

Facts for the Traveler
Visas: Citizens of the USA and Canada can enter St Lucia with proof of citizenship and a photo ID. French citizens can enter with a national identity card. Citizens of the UK, Australia and most other countries must be in possession of a valid passport. For all foreign visitors, stays of over 28 days generally require a visa and an onward or roundtrip ticket or proof of sufficient funds.

Health risks: schistosomiasis (bilharzia) (Bilharzia (schistosomiasis) is endemic to St Lucia; the general precaution is to avoid wading or swimming in freshwater)
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -4 (Atlantic Time)
Electricity: 240V ,50Hz
Weights & measures: Imperial

When to Go

The western shores of St Lucia are a mighty fine place to be from February to April when the rain eases off a bit. At this time you can expect daily highs around the 29°C (84°F) mark with conditions getting a bit hotter but much wetter during the rest of the year.

Events

From the costume parades of Carnival to the bright spinnakers of 150 yachts sailing into Rodney Bay at the end of the Atlantic Rally yacht race, festivals add a splash of colour to St Lucia's lush green background.

Carnival takes place on the two days before Ash Wednesday, usually some time in February or March. It's celebrated with calypso music, costumed parades and band competitions. The biggest musical event of the year is the four-day St Lucian Jazz Festival held in mid-May. It often features international stars such as Herbie Hancock, Chaka Khan and Chuck Mangione. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, a giant transatlantic yacht race, ends at Rodney Bay Marina in December. About 150 boats manage to reach St Lucia from the starting line in the Canary Islands.

St Lucian public holidays are: New Year's Day and New Year's Holiday on the first two days in January; Independence Day on 22 February; Good Friday and Easter Monday in late March or early April; Whit Monday on the eighth Monday after Easter and Corpus Christi on the ninth Thursday after Easter; Emancipation Day on 3 August; Thanksgiving on 5 October; National Day on 13 December, and Christmas and Boxing Day on the 25th and 26th of December.

Money & Costs

- Currency: Eastern Caribbean Dollar
Meals
- Budget: EC$8-25
- Mid-range: EC$25-80
- High: EC$80+

Lodging

- Budget: EC$80-160
- Mid-range: EC$160-300
- High: EC$300+

St Lucia is a fairly expensive destination since most hotels and resorts are of the all-inclusive variety, giving travellers less choice when it comes to finding alternative food and entertainment. If you're travelling independently, moderate accommodations options are available, and you could easily stay in a guesthouse, eat fairly well, hire a car occasionally and explore the island on around 320 a day.

US dollar traveller's cheques are the most convenient to exchange into the local currency, but Canadian dollars and UK sterling traveller's cheques can also be changed without difficulty. Visa, MasterCard and American Express are the most widely accepted credit cards and can be used for car rentals and at most mid-range and top-end restaurants and hotels. There are ATMs in Castries and Rodney Bay.

An 8% tax and a 10% service charge are added onto the bill at all but the cheapest hotels and restaurants; there's no need for an additional tip.

Attractions

Castries
Castries, the island's commercial centre and capital, is a busy port city set on a large natural harbour. The liveliest part of the city is just southeast of the port, at Jeremie and Peynier Sts, where the Castries Market houses scores of produce and handicraft stalls. Founded by the French in the 18th century, the city was ravaged by fire three times between 1785 and 1812, and again in 1948. Consequently most of the city's historic buildings have been lost. One area that survived the last fire was Derek Walcott Square, a quiet central square surrounded by a handful of 19th-century wooden buildings with gingerbread-trim balconies, an attractive Victorian-style library and the imposing Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Opposite the cathedral, on the eastern side of the square, is a lofty saman tree that's estimated to be 400 years old.

Marigot Bay
Marigot Bay is a lovely sheltered bay that's backed by green hillsides and sports a little palm-fringed beach. The inner harbour is so long and deep that an entire British fleet is said to have once escaped French warships by ducking inside and covering their masts with coconut fronds. The bay was the setting for the 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle, starring Rex Harrison.

Marigot Bay is a popular anchorage for yachters and the site of a marina with a customs office, a small market, water, ice and fuel.

Pigeon Island National Park
Pigeon Island is more a historical monument than a nature reserve, with ruins dating from the mid-1700s, including a fortress, barracks and some rusting cannons. The grounds are well endowed with lofty trees, including a few big banyans, and there's fine views of the coast and nearby Martinique.

The island has a spicy history dating back to the 1550s when St Lucia's first French settler, Jambe de Bois ('Wooden Leg'), used it as a base for raiding passing Spanish ships. Two centuries later British admiral George Rodney fortified the island, using it to monitor the French fleet on Martinique. With the end of hostilities between the two European rivals, the fort slipped into disuse in the 19th century, although the USA established a small signal station there during WWII.

Rodney Bay
Rodney Bay is a large protected bay that encompasses the resort area of Reduit Beach and the small fishing village of Gros Islet. An artificial channel cuts between the two areas, opening to a large lagoon that's the site of Rodney Bay Marina, the island's largest yachting port. The marina is a good place to make contact with sailors if you're looking to hitch a ride or find a crew job.

Gros Islet consists of simple wooden houses with rusting tin roofs, lots of rum shops and a shore full of painted wooden boats. If you hear a conch shell being blown, it's the signal that fishing boats have arrived with catch to sell. Though the town doesn't have many sights per se, St Joseph's Church is a formidable structure at the northern edge of town, and there's a small market near the shore where you can often find fishers mending nets. Gros Islet is also famous for its spirited Friday night 'jump-up'.

Soufrière
The bayside town of Soufrière was founded by the French in 1746 and named after nearby sulphur springs. The coastal Pitons provide a scenic backdrop to the south and the island's highest peaks rise above the rainforest just a few miles inland. Like other fishing communities along the coast, Soufrière has lots of old weathered buildings: some still adorned with delicate trim, others more ramshackle. There's an interesting stone Catholic church in the town centre. On the northern side of the dock is the Soufrière Market, where you can buy baskets, straw hats and spices. Although most visitors to Soufrière daytrip on tours, the town's relaxed provincial character is really only appreciated by those who stay overnight. There are some interesting places to stay, ranging from moderate guesthouses to secluded top-end retreats.

Maria Islands Nature Reserve
These tiny islands are the only habitat of the kouwes snake, one of the world's rarest grass snakes, and the Maria Islands ground lizard. A sanctuary for seabirds, it's closed during the summer nesting season, but it can be visited at other times on tours arranged by the St Lucia National Trust.

Sulphur Springs
Sulphur Springs is a barren terrain pocked with pools of boiling mud and steaming vents. The vents release great quantities of sulphuric gases, which are responsible for the yellow mineral deposits blanketing the area. The putrid smell, similar to rotten eggs, is hydrogen sulphide. Visitors used to walk up close to the vents and peer directly into the mud ponds until a local guide leading a group of German tourists stepped through the soft earth and plunged waist-deep into boiling mud. He lived to tell the tale, but everything is now viewed from the safety of overlooks. Despite the fact that this area is promoted as a 'drive-in volcano,' those expecting to peer down into a volcanic crater will be disappointed. The crater walls eroded away eons ago, and now the volcanic activity is along the side of a hill.

Vieux Fort
Vieux Fort, St Lucia's southernmost town, would be beyond the itinerary of most visitors if it wasn't the site of the island's international airport, which is just north of the town centre. The town has a mix of older wooden buildings and newer structures as well as the island's second-largest port. If you're overnighting here before a flight, check out the white-sand beaches at the east side of town.

There's a lighthouse atop a 730-foot hill on Moule à Chique, the island's southernmost point, which offers a view of the Maria Islands, St Lucia's interior mountains and, if the weather's clear, the island of St Vincent to the south.

Activities

Despite the island's resort infrastructure, all of St Lucia's beaches are public. There are fine swathes of sand and good swimming on the touristy northwestern coast between Gros Islet and Pigeon Point, and at Choc Beach and Reduit Beach. The southwestern coast has plenty of secret coves and bays, but many are accessible only by boat. The Vieux Fort area, at the southern tip of the island, and Cas-en-Bas, on St Lucia's northeastern coast, are popular with experienced windsurfers.

St Lucia's rugged mountain terrain continues beneath the sea as underwater mounts, caves and drop-offs. Most of the diving takes place on the western side of the island since the east is less protected and has rougher water conditions. Anse Chastanet, just north of Soufrière, has been designated as a marine park and boasts near-shore reefs with a wide variety of corals, sponges and reef fish. Its accessibility makes it excellent for both diving and snorkelling. A popular dive spot further south is Key Hole Pinnacles, where coral-encrusted underwater mounts rise to within a metre of the surface. Another interesting option is the artificial reef that has formed around the 50m (165ft) freighter, the Lesleen, which was deliberately sunk in 20m (65ft) of water at Anse Cochon. Other good snorkelling and diving spots include the area beneath Petit Piton and Gros Piton, the coastal mountains that loom to the south of Soufrière and Pigeon Island in the main resort area north of Castries.

The three main hiking trails heading into the mountainous interior on public lands are administered by the Department of Forest & Lands. The three-hour return trip to the top of the 434m (1446ft) Morne la Cam on the accessible Barre de L'isle Trail follows the ridge that divides the eastern and western halves of St Lucia. The Des Cartiers Rainforest Trail at the Quilesse Forest Reserve passes through the habitat of the rare St Lucia parrot. The Edmund Forest Reserve Trail negotiates a rainforest interlaced with orchids and bromelaids and offers a view of St Lucia's highest peak, the 935m (3118ft) Mt Gimie. Most hikers negotiate the latter two trails as part of an organised walk because the trail markers can be difficult to find.

History

Archaeological finds on the island indicate that St Lucia was settled by Arawaks between 1000 and 500 BC. Around 800 AD migrating Caribs conquered the Arawaks and established permanent settlements on the island.
St Lucia was outside the routes taken by Columbus on his four visits to the New World and was probably first sighted by Spanish explorers during the early 1500s. The first attempt at European colonisation wasn't made until 1605, when a party of English settlers was quickly routed by unreceptive Caribs. A second attempt by British colonists from St Kitts was made in 1638, but the settlement was abandoned within two years after most of the settlers were killed in attacks.

After the British left, the French laid claim to the island and attempted to reach an agreement with the Caribs. In 1746, the French established the island's first town, Soufrière, and began developing plantations. The British successfully invaded in 1778 and established naval bases at Gros Islet and Pigeon Island, which they used as staging grounds for attacks on the French islands to the north. St Lucia seesawed between the British and the French until 1814, when the Treaty of Paris finally ceded the island to the British, ending 150 years of conflict during which St Lucia had changed flags 14 times. Culturally the British were slow in replacing French customs and it wasn't until 1842 that English nudged out French as St Lucia's official language.

Other customs linger to this day: the majority of locals speak a French-based patois, attend Catholic churches and live in villages with French names. St Lucia gained internal autonomy in 1967 and full independence, as a member of the British Commonwealth, in 1979. The birth of the tiny country was not all smooth sailing, however. The St Lucia Labour Party (SLP) government,led by John Compton, was rocked by resignations in 1981, so that by 1982 its grip on power was weak. The impasse was aggravated by strikes and demonstrations leading to the collapse of the government in January of that year. John Compton and the SLP were back in power in 1987, still committed to their stated ambition of union with the neighbouring islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent and Dominica. By the mid-1990s, a crisis in the banana industry over trade with the European Union had damaged the island's economy and unemployment was reported to be hovering at around 30%. Governments since have intensified efforts to reform and diversify the economy.

Since then, tourism has boomed, and construction of resorts has not always followed environmentally sound guidelines. One of the newest resorts was shamelessly built smack between the twin Pitons, which have always stood as the symbol of the island's unspoiled natural character. Prior to the construction, many islanders had hoped the land would be set aside for a new national park.
Environment
St Lucia is teardrop-shaped, roughly 44km (27mi) in length and 23km (14mi) in width. The interior is largely mountainous, reaching its highest point at the 950m (3120ft) Mt Gimie in the southwest. Deep valleys, many of which are planted with bananas and coconuts, reach down from the mountains.

The Soufrière area has the island's best-known geological features: the twin volcanic cones of the Pitons, which rise up some 760m (2500ft) from the shoreline, and the hot bubbling Sulphur Springs just inland from the town.

St Lucia's vegetation ranges from dry and scrubby areas of cacti and hibiscus to lush jungly valleys with wild orchids, bromeliads, heliconia and lianas. Under the British colonial administration much of St Lucia's rainforest was targeted for timber harvesting. In many ways the independent St Lucian government has proved a far more effective environmental force, and although only about 10% of the island remains covered in rainforest, most of it has now been set aside as nature reserve. The largest indigenous trees in the rainforest are the gommier, a towering gumtree, and the chatagnier, a huge buttress-trunked tree.

Island fauna includes the St Lucia parrot, St Lucian oriole, purple-throated Carib hummingbird, bats, lizards, iguana, tree frogs, introduced mongoose, the rabbit-like agouti and several snake species, including the venomous fer-de-lance and the boa constrictor. It's illegal to damage, collect, buy or sell any type of coral on St Lucia and nothing should be removed from any of the island's many marine reserves.

In January the average daily high temperature in Castries is 27°C (81°F), while the low averages 20°C (68°F). In July the average daily high is 29°C (85°F), while the low averages 22°C (72°F). Rainfall is much heavier in the mountains. In Castries, measurable rain falls an average of 11 days a month from January to March, the driest months. The rainiest months, June to December, have an average of 18 days of rain.
Getting There & Away
L'Express des Iles operates an express catamaran between Castries and Fort-de-France in Martinique. If you come in by yacht you can clear customs and immigration at Rodney Bay, Castries, Vieux Fort and Marigot Bay. Marigot Bay is the easiest place to clear the bureaucracy because you can anchor in the inner harbour and dinghy over to the customs office. Cruise ships dock in Castries Harbour.

St Lucia has two airports: Hewanorra International Airport in Vieux Fort, at the remote southern tip of the island, and Vigie Airport in Castries, near the main tourist area. International flights land at Hewanorra, while flights from within the Caribbean generally land at Vigie. Most visitors will find it more convenient to book a flight into Vigie. You can fly direct to St Lucia from New York, Miami, Toronto and London.

The Caribbean's major inter-island carrier, LIAT, has flights between St Lucia and Caracas as well as daily nonstop flights to Vigie Airport from Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Martinique, St Vincent and Trinidad and connecting flights from the rest of LIAT's Caribbean network. Air passengers leaving St Lucia pay an 27 departure tax.

Getting Around

St Lucia is only 44km (27mi) in length and 23km (14mi) in width, so it doesn't take long to get to most places on the island. Most islanders use the cheap minivan bus service to get to town, school or work. Services are frequent on main routes (such as Castries to Gros Islet) during the day, but getting a bus after dark can be challenging. Very few buses run on Sunday. If there's no bus stop nearby, you can wave buses down en route as long as there's space for the bus to pull over.

Taxis are plentiful at the airports, in Castries and in the main resort areas. Always establish the fare with the driver before you get in, doubly so if you want to do anything 'unusual', like stopping to see a view.

There are car rental agencies at the airports and at Rodney Bay. Unless you have an International Driving Permit, you'll need to purchase a local license, which can be picked up from immigration at both Hewanorra International Airport and Vigie Airport. If you don't get a license on arrival, most car rental companies will either issue one or take you to a nearby police station to get one. Remember to drive on the left.

Further Reading

- To Windward of the Land: The Occult World of Alexander Charles by Jane C Beck: This book focuses in on one of the island's more idiosyncratic characters.
- The Nature of the Islands: Plants & Animals of the Eastern Caribbean by Virginia Barlow: The best overall guide to the region's flora and fauna.
- The Bounty by Derek Walcott: A novel recounting the fate of the Bounty
- Collected Poems, 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott: An anthology by St Lucia's favourite son and Nobel prize winner.
- Outlines of St. Lucia's History by Charles Jesse: A slim overview of the island's history up to the 1960s.