Where to go
Carnival
Not an attraction but an institution: J'ouvert before dawn on the Monday, mas bands through the streets on Tuesday, and months of fetes, panyards and calypso competitions leading up to it. The steelpan was invented here and the Panorama competition is its world championship. If you come for this, come for two weeks.
Port of Spain and the north
The Queen's Park Savannah and the Magnificent Seven houses around it, the Botanic Gardens, and the panyards where steel orchestras rehearse in the open — free to attend and the best introduction to the music. Maracas Bay over the mountains for bake and shark.
The Caroni swamp
An evening boat trip through mangroves to watch thousands of scarlet ibis — the national bird — come in to roost, turning the trees red at dusk. One of the great wildlife spectacles anywhere, and forty minutes from the capital.
The Asa Wright Nature Centre
A former plantation in the northern range turned into a research station and lodge, with hummingbirds, oilbirds and around a hundred and seventy bird species from the veranda. Serious birding country.
Tobago
A different island entirely: Pigeon Point, Buccoo reef, and the Main Ridge Forest Reserve — the oldest legally protected rainforest in the western hemisphere, designated in 1776. Diving at Speyside. Four days.
The east coast and Nariva
Manzanilla's coconut palms, Mayaro's long beach, and the Nariva swamp with manatees and red howler monkeys. The least visited part of Trinidad.
Building the itinerary
- Three stops a week, no more. Every move costs half a day at minimum, often a whole one, and you see nothing of a place where you sleep one night.
- Alternate the pace. A dense city, then two quiet days: that is what makes travelling as a couple sustainable, especially if one of you lives there and works.
- Keep a buffer day before the flight home, in the departure city. Domestic transport delays are the leading cause of missed flights.
- Ask the person who lives there what they want to show you. Guidebook itineraries and the places that matter to them rarely overlap — and the second list is the better one.
Two reflexes that change a trip
Distances deceive. On a map two points look close; on the ground, road conditions, checkpoints and terrain double or triple the time. Plan fewer stops and more time at each.
Ask before photographing anyone, and never insist. Official buildings, soldiers, airports and bridges are best avoided almost everywhere — the most banal and most avoidable source of trouble.