St. Lucia: A Caribbean Paradise?

When we first saw photos of St. Lucia’s famous Pitons, we knew we had to visit someday.

St. Lucia is a lush, mountainous island in the Caribbean’s Windward group, with its crags and dramatic rock formations carved by many millennia of volcanic activity. The French were the first Europeans to arrive on St. Lucia in the 17th century, and the French influence is still felt everywhere – from place names to the lilting Creole spoken by the locals. Although France and England traded control of St. Lucia for a couple of centuries, St. Lucia ended up on the British side of things. The island has been an independent nation since 1979, but it’s still a member of the British Commonwealth. Another bit of trivia: St. Lucia is the only country in the world named after a woman (St. Lucy of Syracuse).

After visiting several Caribbean destinations, we can’t say that St. Lucia is our favorite (more on that later). But it is an absolutely gorgeous island, with PERFECT weather. We really enjoyed our post-Thanksgiving week there. Here are our highlights. 

The Tet Paul Nature Trail

The taller Gros Piton is the easiest for visitors to climb. But if you have neither the time nor the inclination for a difficult 5-hour hike, the Tet Paul Nature Trail is a good fallback. The guided hike only takes about an hour round-trip, and the lookout at the top rewards you with a near-360-degree view of southern St. Lucia – including an iconic panorama of both Pitons.

We can’t stress this enough: GO EARLY. We turned up about 9 a.m. (Tet Paul opens at 8) and shared a guide with only one other couple. But coming down, we passed at least three very large groups from the cruise ships heading up (there were over 40 folks in one group!), and the parking lot was choked with buses and vans.

Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens

About a 20-minute drive from Tet Paul are the Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens These lovely gardens and their spring-fed thermal baths are part of the original Soufriere Estate, a 2,000-acre parcel granted to the Devaux family by King Louis XIV of France in 1713. The gardens have remained in the same family ever since.

Fed by the Sulphur Springs, the Diamond River flows through the property and tumbles over the centerpiece: Diamond Falls. Stained black from volcanic mud, the river contains an abundance of minerals that paint the rock face behind the falls with vivid color. The gardens also include historic thermal baths fed by the springs, if you’re not in the mood to experience the uber-touristy and crowded mud baths at the Sulfur Springs resort.

Again, it’s a good idea to get here early to beat the cruise ship crowds. The Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens open at 10 a.m.

Soufriere

St. Lucia’s second-largest city, Soufriere was the first French colonial capital and today includes many descendants of those original colonizers. Although we didn’t spend much time in Soufriere, it’s a good base for visiting some of St. Lucia’s most popular beaches and tourist attractions. These include the two mentioned above as well as a couple we decided to skip: the Sulfur Springs and the “drive-through volcano.”

Restaurant tip: Seashell Beach Restaurant, overlooking Hummingbird Beach on the northern edge of Soufriere, is a nice lunch stop.

The Church of the Assumption at the town’s main plaza

Soufriere is filled with historic buildings reflecting French architecture.

Pigeon Island National Park and Landmark

Located in the northwest corner of St. Lucia, Pigeon Island was once separated from the mainland until it was joined by a causeway to the community of Gros Islet in 1972. Pigeon Island is the home of one of St. Lucia’s most important historic sites, Fort Rodney and the Pigeon Island National Landmark. It’s a nice place for a morning stroll, with several walking trails and the ruins of military buildings – some dating to the 18th century – used during various battles between the French and British for control of St. Lucia. The lookout at Fort Rodney offers panoramic views of the northwest coastline, and a couple of small but scenic beaches offer protected swimming and beachcombing.

Restaurant tip: Just a few minutes from Pigeon Island, Spinnakers Beach Bar on Gros Islet is a great lunch stop. Located right on Reduit Beach, Spinnakers is a popular hangout for cruising sailors  – and in fact is a big sponsor of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, a huge annual ocean sailing event. It’s no wonder we felt right at home there!

The Beaches

OK, time for a rant. By law, St. Lucia’s beaches are meant to be open and available to the public. But the most beautiful beaches are unmarked and very difficult to access, usually down rough and poorly maintained roads. And several are almost completely taken over by resorts who charge exorbitant fees to rent beach chairs and dine in their beachfront restaurants (that’s IF they allow entry to non-guests). We even saw one sign that said all of the beach above the high waterline was resort property. What are the locals supposed to do, set up their beach chairs in the water? And when the afternoon snorkeling boats show up and disgorge hordes of cruise-shippers, the beaches get crazy-crowded.

As a result, we got in a lot less beach time than we had hoped for on this trip. But the beaches ARE pretty and worth checking out. Our best beach experience was at Anse Cochon, convenient to our lodging near the town of Anse La Raye.

The St. Lucia Driving Adventure

There’s no sugar-coating this: Driving on St. Lucia is exhausting, time-consuming, and downright hair-raising at times. Although many of the roads are newly paved and in good shape, most are narrow and winding, and they typically drop off on either side into steep drainage ditches without a real shoulder on which to pull off. Encountering an oncoming vehicle whipping around a hairpin curve at high speed is REALLY fun (St. Lucians are crazy drivers!). And if you’re not used to righthand driving on the left side of the road (like us yanks!), add that to the list of driving challenges.

IMPORTANT: Avoid driving at night if you can, and try to time the arrival of your flight early in the day. Our flight didn’t land until late afternoon, and little did we know that St. Lucia’s national election was just a couple of days away. This meant hordes of LOUD and boisterous campaign rallies choking the roadways and creating long delays for motorists (but good on the St. Lucians, to be so enthusiastic about their election!). Oh, and mix in the rollover auto accident and the downed power line across the road. Because of all this, driving to our hotel took about three times longer than normal, and we arrived well after dark. Driving at night on St. Lucia is not an experience we want to repeat, ever!

A Bright Spot: Our Lodging

We really enjoyed our stay at Royal Escape, a lovely apartment rental in an area called Massacre near the town of Anse La Raye. Royal Escape is well-situated about halfway down the western coast of St. Lucia, which makes accessing points of interest near Soufriere and Gros Islet easier.

Our apartment was spacious, airy, and clean, the ideal retreat after a day of sightseeing and … yeah … stressful driving. The host, Pat, was welcoming and so helpful, doing her best to accommodate our every need. We’ll never forget the delicious supper of wings and salads she served us the night of our arrival, after we rolled up tired and frustrated from the long drive. Pat is a gem!

We had mixed feelings about St. Lucia.

It’s rare that we visit a place and come away feeling less than enthused. The last time it happened was our trip to Tulum, Mexico several years ago. Our visit to St. Lucia gave us some distinct Tulum déjà vu.

St. Lucia is a great place to visit if you’re off a cruise ship or staying in a high-end resort. The island is a HUGE port of call for cruise ships, visited by close to 500 cruise ships and well over 800,000 (yes, almost a MILLION!) passengers every year. Some of the attractions we visited seemed overwhelmed and ill-equipped to deal with the crush of cruise ship visitors. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of consideration given to folks who prefer to travel the way we do – that is, to rent a car and stay in a local apartment. Given the driving difficulties mentioned above, it takes a very long time to get from point A to point B on St. Lucia, even if the distances are relatively short. Signage to beaches and other points of interest is almost non-existent. And as we mentioned, the nicest beaches are almost off-limits.

St. Lucia seems to be on the verge of ecological disaster.
While many homes are on septic systems (themselves problematic on an island with a high water table), we learned that the main cities of Castries and Soufreire and some of the resorts are dumping their raw, untreated sewage directly into the ocean. When we visited Marigot Bay, a beautiful, protected bay that is known as a hurricane hole for sailors, we were almost knocked over by the stench of sewage as soon as we got out of the car. Yes, there are mangroves that can emit their own “rotten egg” smell at times, but we know poop when we smell it.

The tap water in most places is undrinkable, which meant having to buy bottled water. We were also shocked to find that there is zero recycling on the island. It killed us to have to dump our wine and water bottles and other plastic waste into the garbage. Our landlady told us that recycling isn’t a thing on St. Lucia, but we did see see bales of compressed plastic water bottles at a shipping area near the airport. Maybe things are starting to change for the better.

As always, it’s the locals that suffer the most.
This is not meant to be a criticism of the St. Lucians, who are lovely, warm, and welcoming. They deserve so much better. They deserve easy, free access to their beautiful beaches. They deserve a political system that will help lift them out of poverty and give them a means to thrive without being so dependent on the tourism that’s damaging their ecosystem. And they deserve an infrastructure that provides them with clean water and continuous power, and enables them to live without the stench of sewage in the air. In this latest election, St. Lucians voted overwhelmingly to keep the current government in power. Let’s hope the status quo will continue making steps in the right direction.

We did have some lovely moments on St. Lucia. And we would never discourage anyone from visiting.

But the trip did make us reflect anew on our role as visitors to a fragile, over-touristed place. We’d like to hope that our method of travel is a bit easier on the environment, and more supportive of the local economy, than the cruise ships that bring in thousands of people for only a few hours every day. It’s a two-edged sword – are we contributing to the island’s environmental problems, or are we helping to support the locals whose livelihoods depend on tourism? Or both?

At the least, we came away more mindful of our role as tourists and travelers and our impact on the places we visit. It’s not a new struggle, but it’s good to get a reminder now and again of our place in the world and – most especially – how very privileged we are to be able to live this travel lifestyle.

Have you visited St. Lucia? What was your experience?