Trinidad and Tobago travel guide: Carnival, the north coast and Tobago

Quick answer · where to go in Trinidad and Tobago

Split the trip. Port of Spain is the base for Trinidad: the Queen's Park Savannah, the museums, the panyards in Woodbrook and Laventille, and the flat-bottomed boat that goes into the Caroni Swamp at dusk to watch the scarlet ibis come in. From there the north coast is a day at a time. The Saddle Road climbs over the Northern Range to Maracas Bay, and the coast road carries on to Las Cuevas and Blanchisseuse, with Grande Riviere further east, where leatherbacks nest from March to August. The Arima Valley behind the town is the birding half of the island, and the south, around San Fernando, is where the energy industry and the Pitch Lake at La Brea are. Give Tobago the second week and pick an end. Crown Point and Buccoo hold the reef, the beaches and the Sunday-night party; Speyside and Charlotteville in the northeast hold the diving, the Main Ridge forest and almost nobody. If the trip lands on Carnival, keep Trinidad for the road days and cross afterwards.

All regions Port of Spain & the west Trinidad's north coast Central & east Trinidad South Trinidad Southwest Tobago Northeast Tobago

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Fun fact

One number worth knowing

On 1 August 1985 Trinidad and Tobago replaced Discovery Day with Emancipation Day, becoming the first country in the world to make a national holiday of the end of slavery. The date marks 1 August 1838, when full emancipation took effect across the British Caribbean, and the holiday is kept as a procession and a night of drumming rather than a day off, which is also why the Tobago Heritage Festival is timed to end on it.

Stereotypes, sorted out

The clichés you have heard, what is actually true, and how to behave once you land.

"It is one destination with two names."

The realityIt is two islands that want different holidays. Trinidad is industrial, urban and Indo- and Afro-Caribbean, with the Carnival calendar, the food and the birding. Tobago is a small reef island with a rainforest down its spine. Treating either as a side trip to the other is the most common planning mistake.

"Carnival is a beach party."

The realityIt is a competitive season with a road finale. From Boxing Day the panyards rehearse in public, the calypso tents open, and the Panorama, Calypso Monarch and Soca Monarch contests run for weeks. J'Ouvert starts in the dark on Carnival Monday with mud, oil and paint, and the costumed bands go on the road afterwards. The beaches are largely empty that week.

"This is a beach country like Barbados."

The realityTrinidad earns its living from oil and gas, not from tourism, and its coastline shows it. The beach holiday is on Tobago and on Trinidad's north coast; the rest of Trinidad is a working island that happens to hold one of the densest bird lists in the Americas.

"Hurricane season rules it out."

The realityThe islands sit at the southern edge of the Atlantic hurricane belt and most systems track north of them. The wet season from June to December brings afternoon rain rather than storms, and Tobago is more exposed than Trinidad. Season matters here mainly for what is nesting, flowering or being celebrated.

"You will need Spanish, being this close to Venezuela."

The realityEnglish is the official language and the working one, everywhere. Trinidadian Creole is what you will actually hear, Spanish is widely taught and increasingly heard in Trinidad, and Trinidadian Hindustani survives in religious and musical use.

That the steelpan is a novelty instrument, when it is the national instrument in law and Panorama is a serious competition with arrangers whose names people argue about.That Carnival is the only reason to come, which writes off a bird list of 489 species, the leatherback beaches and everything on Tobago.That the food is generic Caribbean, when the defining plates are Indian dishes remade in Trinidad and sold on the street.That the islands are interchangeable with the rest of the Lesser Antilles, when the geology, the flora and half the birds are South American.That Tobago is the quiet version of Trinidad, when it is a separate place with its own assembly, its own accent and its own festivals.That everything shuts outside Carnival, when the calendar runs Divali, Hosay, Emancipation, the Tobago Heritage Festival and parang through the rest of the year.

How to get it right

A lime is the local word for hanging out, and it is an invitation rather than an event. It has no start time, no agenda and often no fixed venue, and turning one down twice is noticed.
Ask before photographing a masquerader, a panyard rehearsal or anyone in costume. Carnival looks public and much of it is deeply personal.
Doubles is eaten standing at the stall, and the only question you will be asked is how much pepper. Say slight if you are unsure; the answer is not reversible.
Religious festivals are shared rather than segregated. Non-Hindus light deyas at Divali and non-Muslims watch the tadjahs at Hosay, but Hosay is a commemoration and not a carnival, so behave accordingly.
Greet people before you ask them anything. A good morning first is not optional politeness here, and skipping it reads as rudeness rather than as efficiency.
Tobago keeps its own pace and its own institutions, and referring to the whole country as Trinidad in front of a Tobagonian will be corrected, usually with good humour.

Famous Trinbagonian faces

The names behind Trinbagonian music, writing, sport and public life. Pick a field.

Brian Lara

Holds Test cricket's highest individual score, 400 not out against England in Antigua in 2004, and the first-class record of 501 not out for Warwickshire in 1994.

V. S. Naipaul

Born in Chaguanas and awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. A House for Mr Biswas is set in the Trinidad he grew up in.

Machel Montano

The defining soca voice of the past three decades, on the road every Carnival since he started out as a child performer in the 1980s.

Nicki Minaj

Born in Saint James, Port of Spain, and raised in Queens. One of the best-selling rappers of her generation.

Calypso Rose

Born McArtha Lewis in Bethel, Tobago. The first woman to take Trinidad's national calypso crown, after which the title was renamed from King to Monarch.

Lord Kitchener

Aldwyn Roberts of Arima, who sang London Is the Place for Me off the Empire Windrush in 1948 and went on to write a generation of Road March winners.

Peter Minshall

The mas designer who turned Carnival bands into moving theatre, and artistic director of the Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Salt Lake 2002 Olympic ceremonies.

Hasely Crawford

Won the 100 metres at Montreal in 1976, the country's first Olympic gold. Port of Spain's national stadium carries his name.

C. L. R. James

Born in Tunapuna. Wrote The Black Jacobins on the Haitian revolution, and Beyond a Boundary, the book that made writing about cricket serious.

Earl Lovelace

The novelist who stayed. The Dragon Can't Dance puts a Port of Spain hill yard and its Carnival band at the centre of the national story.

Sam Selvon

Wrote The Lonely Londoners in 1956, the novel that gave Caribbean London its own voice on the page rather than a narrator's.

Geoffrey Holder

Port of Spain dancer, painter and director, and winner of two Tony Awards for The Wiz in 1975.

Heather Headley

Born in Barataria. Won a Tony for Aida in 2000 and a Grammy for the gospel album Audience of One in 2010.

Billy Ocean

Born in Fyzabad and raised in London. Caribbean Queen won a Grammy in 1985.

Winifred Atwell

The Tunapuna-born pianist who became the first Black musician to reach number one on the UK singles chart, in 1954.

Ellie Mannette

The Woodbrook pan builder who sank the playing surface into the drum and tuned the modern steelpan into existence.

Dwight Yorke

Born in Canaan, Tobago. Scored 29 goals in Manchester United's treble season of 1998-99 and captained Trinidad and Tobago at the 2006 World Cup.

Ato Boldon

Four Olympic sprint medals and the 200 metres world title in 1997. Now the voice on American track broadcasts.

Keshorn Walcott

Won the javelin at London 2012 at nineteen, and took bronze in Rio four years later.

Janelle Commissiong

Won Miss Universe in 1977, the first Black woman to take the title.

Eric Williams

Historian of Capitalism and Slavery, and the country's first prime minister, from independence in 1962 until his death in office in 1981.

Kamla Persad-Bissessar

The country's first woman prime minister, sworn in in 2010 and returned to the office in 2025.

Kwame Ture

Born Stokely Carmichael in Port of Spain. The activist who put the phrase Black Power into American politics in 1966.

Anya Ayoung-Chee

Won Project Runway in 2011 and built a label around Trinidadian craft and Carnival costume.

Must-try Trinbagonian food

The street first, then the roti shop, then a drink made of bark. Pick a category.

Doubles

Two soft fried baras folded around curried channa, with tamarind, shadon beni and as much pepper as you ask for. Breakfast, and the national snack.

Bake and shark

Fried flatbread and fried shark, then a condiment bar you build yourself. Maracas Bay is where it is eaten.

Buss up shut

Paratha beaten until it looks like a torn shirt, served to mop up curry rather than to wrap it.

Dhalpuri roti

A skin filled with ground split peas, wrapped around curried goat, chicken or duck. The one most people order.

Curried duck

Cooked down slow, usually outdoors, usually with rum involved. A river-lime dish rather than a restaurant one.

Curry crab and dumpling

Tobago's plate: blue crab in coconut curry with a heavy boiled dumpling. Eaten with your hands, and messily.

Pelau

Rice, pigeon peas and chicken cooked down in burnt sugar and coconut milk. The pot that turns up at every beach lime.

Callaloo

Dasheen leaf, okra, coconut milk and often crab, blended smooth. Sunday lunch, beside the macaroni pie.

Macaroni pie

A baked, sliceable macaroni cheese, and a side dish taken as seriously here as the meat it sits next to.

Stew chicken

Browning is the whole trick: sugar burnt in oil until it turns, then the chicken goes in and takes the colour.

Souse

Pig trotter or chicken foot cured in lime, cucumber, onion and hot pepper. Saturday food, served cold.

Corn soup

Split peas, corn on the cob and dumplings out of a roadside pot, and the reason people are still out at two in the morning.

Aloo pie

A fried dough pocket of spiced potato, split open at the counter and filled with chutney and pepper sauce.

Pholourie

Split-pea fritters sold by the bag, and never without tamarind chutney.

Black cake

Dried fruit soaked in rum for months, then baked almost black. Christmas and weddings, and a small slice is enough.

Kurma

Fried dough sticks in a ginger sugar glaze, sold in bags at Divali and at every Carnival fete.

Sorrel

Hibiscus calyces steeped with clove and ginger, served cold and often with rum in it. Christmas in a glass.

Mauby

Tree bark boiled with spice, drunk cold and bitter. An acquired taste, and worth acquiring.

Angostura bitters

Made in Laventille since the company moved from Venezuela in the 1870s, and in cocktails on every continent since.

Trinidad and Tobago travel FAQ

When is Carnival in Trinidad?+

Carnival Monday and Tuesday fall immediately before Ash Wednesday, so the dates move with Easter each year. In 2027 they are 8 and 9 February. The season itself opens on Boxing Day, and the fetes, panyard rehearsals and calypso tents run through January, so the two road days are the finale rather than the whole thing.

Do I need to visit both islands?+

If you have a week, no. Pick Trinidad for Carnival, food, birding and city life, or Tobago for reef, beaches and rainforest. With ten days or more, do both: the two are genuinely different trips and the crossing is short. Most people give Trinidad the first half and Tobago the second.

How do I get between Trinidad and Tobago?+

Two ways. The inter-island ferry runs between Port of Spain and Scarborough, about two and a half hours on the fast boats and longer on the others. Caribbean Airlines flies the air bridge between Piarco and ANR Robinson in around twenty minutes. Both fill up around Carnival, Easter and Christmas, so book before you land rather than on the day.

Is Trinidad and Tobago in the hurricane belt?+

The islands sit at the southern edge of it, and direct hits are historically rare. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June to November and peaks between August and October, but here that usually means the outer rain of a system passing to the north rather than the system itself. Tobago is the more exposed of the two.

Do I need a visa?+

Citizens of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU member states and the CARICOM countries are among those admitted without a visa, normally for up to 90 days, with a passport valid well beyond the stay, a return ticket and proof of funds. Everyone else applies through the Immigration Division's eVisa. Check the current list before booking, because it changes.

Trinidad and Tobago, Carnival and two islands that want different things