Sightseeing

Island Tour

Your first tour should definitely be a full island tour. Apart from being the best way to familiarize yourself with Tobago, it will help you to identify the places you wish to explore in more detail.

Being only 26 miles long by 8 miles wide, it is quite feasible to do a circular tour of the island in a day. The mileage is negligible, but the road are narrow, twisty and bumpy so choose your tour guide carefully and ensure that you will be traveling in a new(ish) air-conditioned vehicle large enough to comfortably accommodate the required number of passengers.

With the main aim of doing a circular tour of the island and limited options of stopping places, most tour operators offer variations of the same basic theme: a drive up the Caribbean coast, possibly stopping briefly at Castara and Englishman's Bay; over the Main Ridge Forest Reserve; lunch at Jemma's Treehouse Restaurant (and just hope that you're not there at the same time as one of package holiday inmate outings); a trip into Charlotteville; then return down the Atlantic Coast.

Hire a jeep and go to Speyside at the north end of the island. Although Tobago is only 27 miles long, it'll take you a day to travel up and down the island. The roads in Tobago are quite good and improving all the time, but they are few and far between, and tend to wind around the coastline - giving you spectacular scenic views. There's plenty of things to see and do on the way - you may need to take 2 separate days to see most of the sights - but head for Speyside and see the contrast with the south of the island.

Speyside Lookout

The view from the ‘Speyside Lookout’ is lovely, and you 5may very well be standing there alone with your camera. Speyside is predominantly known on Tobago for it's diving opportunities. The diving is fantastic, and it’s here that you’re likely to see the island’s famous manta rays. There aren't many places to stop and get a drink on the way - so take something with you. You are very much in real Tobago as you drive through the villages. Tourists and their jeeps are 'an event' as they pass by - you'll only ever see friendly faces, but the real Tobago doesn't have a diner or bar at every corner - and to be honest - that's nice. 

Just a mile across, is a bird sanctuary popular with walkers and birders. It hosts one of the largest seabird colonies in the Caribbean and is reached from Speyside by pirogue or glassbottomed boat - a 15 minute trip over coral reefs across Tyrell’s Bay, passing Little Goat Island.

From Speyside you can see Goat Island and Little Tobago, a 450 acre bird sanctuary. Trips to these islands can be arranged locally.