6 Best Things to Do in Antigua and Barbuda

Author: Eka­te­ri­na Sergee­va

Updat­ed: 20 August 2020

The islands of Antigua and Bar­bu­da are a won­der­ful place on Earth with hot gen­tle sun, gen­tle sand of free beach­es, allur­ing azure waters, mys­te­ri­ous coral reefs, bird voic­es in trop­i­cal gar­dens.

Things to do in Antigua and Barbuda

The state is locat­ed on three Less­er Caribbean Islands: Antigua, Bar­bu­da and Redon­da, dis­cov­ered by Christo­pher Colum­bus in 1493. The only city on the island of Bar­bu­da is Codring­ton.

The first place in the list of attrac­tions of the island nation is occu­pied by beach­es with clean white sand and azure seashore. The most pop­u­lar water sports here are wind­surf­ing, div­ing and spearfish­ing. Antigua and Bar­bu­da is sur­round­ed by mys­te­ri­ous reefs and under­wa­ter rocks that have caused many ship­wrecks. The shal­lows of the shelves are a real par­adise for div­ing enthu­si­asts.

The gen­tly slop­ing shores, white sand of the mag­nif­i­cent beach­es of Antigua have made the coast a favorite des­ti­na­tion for vaca­tion­ers. Tourists pre­fer to sun­bathe and swim at Dick­en­son Bay, Hawks­bill, Jol­ly Har­bor and oth­er beach­es.

Curi­ous trav­el­ers are hap­py to get acquaint­ed with the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sites of Antigua and Bar­bu­da: archi­tec­tur­al mon­u­ments, muse­ums, mil­i­tary forts.

Tourists from all over the world tend to vis­it local nation­al parks famous for their rare birds. The eco­log­i­cal type of Caribbean tourism is quite in demand here. Many trav­el­ers are inter­est­ed in unique nat­ur­al mon­u­ments: for­mer craters of ancient vol­ca­noes, under­ground pools, sta­lac­tite caves.

Once a year, a noisy col­or­ful car­ni­val is held on the islands of the British West Indies, ded­i­cat­ed to the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. Tourists from dif­fer­ent parts of the world come to see the extra­or­di­nary show.

Cultural landmarks and architecture

Cathedral

The dec­o­ra­tion of the cap­i­tal is the Cathe­dral of St. John’s (in Russ­ian — John the Evan­ge­list). It was erect­ed by the British in 1745 from bal­last bricks on a high hill. And a hun­dred years lat­er, instead of the old one, a new tem­ple was built with mas­sive tow­ers of reef lime­stone. Today, tourists see the third ver­sion of it, since the pre­vi­ous build­ing was destroyed as a result of the earth­quake.

The beau­ti­ful stone struc­ture with stained-glass win­dows belongs to the Angli­can Church and is the cen­ter of the Roman Catholic Dio­cese in the north­east of the Caribbean. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the cathe­dral there is an old ceme­tery — a favorite place for the towns­peo­ple for walk­ing.

Museum of Antigua and Barbuda

The muse­um was opened in 1985 by the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Arche­ol­o­gy in coop­er­a­tion with a pri­vate non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion. The col­lec­tion con­sists of exhibits from dif­fer­ent eras and tells about the times of the for­ma­tion of islands of vol­canic ori­gin, colo­nial his­to­ry in the West Indies and the polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence of the state.

The muse­um is locat­ed in the cen­ter of St. John’s and is housed in Court House, a stone colo­nial house built in the mid­dle of the 18th cen­tu­ry in a tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish style. Here you can learn how the Arawaks, the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion of the island, lived in ancient times, and see real life-size Indi­an wig­wams.

Fort Barrington

In 1779, a huge semi­cir­cu­lar Fort Bar­ring­ton was built to pro­tect against the ene­my in Deep Bay. The struc­ture is named after the admi­ral of the British flotil­la that defeat­ed the French dur­ing the war in the West Indies. Lat­er, it housed the ser­vice of escort­ing ships to the cap­i­tal’s har­bor.

The water area of ​​the bay was clear­ly vis­i­ble, and any appear­ance of guests or ene­mies was not unex­pect­ed for the inhab­i­tants of the island. At the same time, the fort’s defens­es remained inac­ces­si­ble to artillery fire from the sea.

The high­est point of the fort is the top of Goat Moun­tain. Climb­ing to the obser­va­tion deck along the pre­served walls of the fort will not take much time. In 30 min­utes you will have an amaz­ing panora­ma of Antigua.

natural attractions

Redonda National Park and Township

Redon­da Park is locat­ed on the epony­mous rocky island of vol­canic ori­gin. In trop­i­cal thick­ets live hawks, owls, hum­ming­birds, rare rep­re­sen­ta­tives of fal­cons — caracaras. Pel­i­cans nest on the rocks. There is also a frigate bird sanc­tu­ary here.

Redon­da is an almost unin­hab­it­ed island. Most­ly it is vis­it­ed by yachts­men. The only set­tle­ment is the small town of Codring­ton, more like a vil­lage. It revives only on the days of nation­al crick­et com­pe­ti­tions. Then the small place is filled with tourists, for whom hotels, bars and shops are opened.

Indian Town Point and Devil’s Bridge

Dev­il’s Bridge is locat­ed in St. Philip Coun­ty with­in Indi­an Town Point Nation­al Park. This is a mirac­u­lous lime­stone rock, real­ly resem­bling a bridge over the deep sea. Its length is 9 m.

For thou­sands of years, the Atlantic Ocean has sharp­ened the rocks of the desert­ed coast. And now, when pow­er­ful waves crash against the bar­ri­er, water, like a geyser, breaks out through the washed holes.

The wild rocky land­scape of the park with­out a sin­gle tree is depress­ing. Accord­ing to one of the leg­ends, in for­mer times the bridge was a place where black slaves said good­bye to life.

donkey sanctuary

The reserve in Antigua is not like a zoo. It is rather a haven for don­keys and goats, which are numer­ous on the island. Sick, old or injured ani­mals that have no own­ers are brought here. Here they are treat­ed and fed.

Farm work­ers nev­er refuse the help of vol­un­teers, even from anoth­er coun­try. You can very well bot­tle feed a new­born don­key or clean up on the site.

The kids love the farm tour. They can take care of home­less ani­mals and thus show spir­i­tu­al com­pas­sion. Pupils from local schools often come to the reserve for biol­o­gy lessons.