We spent almost a week in December 2025 with close friends in Saint Kitts and Nevis, the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere in both area and population. It’s smaller than New York City and has only 48,000 inhabitants. We thought we would have a relaxing vacation: reading books which had been collecting dust, swimming and snorkeling in pleasant bays and wining and dining in fine restaurants. Instead, we scrambled the whole week to go to places that interested us and frankly my book was never cracked.
We learned about the country’s precolonial people, the wars between the English and French, and quite a bit about Alexander Hamilton who was born there. I climbed the highest peak and learned it was much more difficult than I imagined. Collectively, we swam in the warm and calm water on the Caribbean side of Saint Kitts and took the scenic ferry ride to Nevis. We finished each night eating, as originally envisioned, at a different restaurant, serving delicious food with welcoming service. In the photo below, Peter, Caitlin, Nick, Monica, Khadija and I are taking a break after eating many courses at the Orchard Beach House Italian Restaurant.
Why Did We Go to Saint Kitts and Nevis?
A huge motivating factor was escaping the cold of New York City. The main reason though was to visit a new UN country (193 in total), #157 for me and #154 for Khadija. The experience was fun and engaging and far from just “checking it off the list”.
Where is Saint Kitts and Nevis?
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a two-island sovereign nation located in the Leeward Islands chain of the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It’s about 1,300 miles southeast of Miami and a four-hour flight from New York City.
To the east is Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat to the south and Anguilla to the north.
How to Get Around Saint Kitts and Nevis?
We rented a car from Bullseye Rental (four-minute drive from the airport in a free shuttle) to get around on both islands, an efficient way to reach virtually everywhere.
An alternative is public transportation, namely inexpensive, brightly painted minivans, for the main roads.
Taxis in Saint Kitts are relatively expensive, US$15 to US$30 for short distances between popular areas. Rates are often fixed by destination and generally per vehicle which can reduce the per person price.
There are passenger ferries between Saint Kitts and Nevis. In Basseterre, there is a terminal and the trip takes about 35 minutes to Charlestown, Nevis. In Majors Bay, a docking area and not a terminal, ferries transport cars and the ride is about 20 minutes. While we were there, only one company allowed booking online. From our experience, none of the ferries were at capacity for cars and didn’t require being reserved ahead of time.
Another alternative for passengers only is privately rented boat-taxis that leave from a few places. Of course, it’s the most expensive way but the fastest and easiest.
Saint Kitts is the bigger of the two islands and is shaped like a whale to me or a chicken drumstick to some others. Nevis is shaped like a rough-edged circle. Here are some of the attractions:
What Languages Are Spoken in Saint Kitts and Nevis?
English is the official language and everyone speaks it, though some of the accents may be difficult to understand. Among themselves, locals speak English-based creole with West African and Caribbean influences.
How Long to Spend in Saint Kitts and Nevis?
A majority of visitors come on cruise ships and spend a few hours in one day. Doing this would make it difficult to distinguish the country from many other English-speaking Caribbean ones. We spent a week which seemed sufficient to understand how colonialism, geography and geology have influenced the country. We made a special effort to talk with local folks, including the extremely healthy Ralph, who retired here after working for 24 years in Midtown, Manhattan and is now building a home.
Of course, if you like the vibe, the beach or whatever, you can spend a longer time than we did.
Is Saint Kitts and Nevis Safe?
The country is a safe and friendly destination for tourists. However, like everywhere, a visitor must use common sense and reasonable caution, such as not walking alone at night in a deserted place with displayed valuables.
Is Saint Kitts and Nevis Expensive?
The country isn’t cheap but less expensive than some other Caribbean Islands, especially those European territories specializing in high-end villas and luxury boutiques, such as Saint Barts, Anguilla and the Cayman Islands. However, budget travelers could spend much less than the typical tourist by eating at places frequented by locals, taking public transportation and staying in one of the few hostels or in a single accommodation with several friends.
Saint Kitts and Nevis use the Eastern Caribbean dollar as its currency, sharing it with the other six members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the successor to the British West Indies dollar. It has been pegged to the United States dollar since 1976, at the exchange rate of US$1 = EC$2.70.
What to Eat in Saint Kitts and Nevis?
We ate very good food here, including inexpensive and popular patties (empanadas) from local joints.
At night, we treated ourselves to tasty restaurants that catered to tourists, including Spice Mill Restaurant and The View in Palm Court Gardens. We typically ordered meat or fish dishes with local vegetables, potatoes and yuca. There are many ethnic restaurants including Italian, Indian and Mexican. We didn’t sample many of the local dishes, such as Goat Water (a stew), Saltfish & Johnny Cakes (salted cod with fried dough), Pelau (rice & peas), and treats like Sugar Cake (colorful hard squares of coconut and caramelized sugar), as we had sampled them on other Caribbean Islands.
Cafes with specialty coffee, pastries and light fares include Island Roasters and The Café des arts.
Where to Stay in Saint Kitts and Nevis?
There is a wide array of moderate to expensive choices on both islands. We stayed in a private residence in Calypso Bay Resort with Peter and Caitlin, supposedly walkable to Frigate Bay but too long to be practical. Interestingly, here we heard non-stop frog-whistling every night.
Nick and Monica stayed in Koi Resort Saint Kitts, Curio Collection by Hilton with an Atlantic Ocean view.
What are the Religious Denominations of Saint Kitts and Nevis?
Anglicans are about 15% of the population. Once as high as 50%, other Protestant denominations have grown proportionally. Total Protestants are about 80% and the other 20% are Roman Catholic and evangelical orders plus some Hindus and Muslims, whose ancestry is from the Indian subcontinent.
However, despite a lower percentage than in the past, the Anglican Church remains one of the largest Protestant denominations along with Methodists. They have many old, stone churches which we liked to look at closely, including Saint Thomas in Nevis, built in 1860, shown in the following photo.
What are Important Events in Saint Kitts and Nevis’s History?
Before the Europeans arrived, Saint Kitts was inhabited by the Kalinago (Carib) Indians, who occupied the island for hundreds of years, replacing earlier inhabitants, the Arawak (Taino) around 800 AD.
Christopher Columbus was possibly the first European to see the island in 1493 and named it San Cristóbal, after Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. English colonists eventually called it Kit as a nickname for Christopher. The island came to be informally referred to as Saint Kitt’s, later as Saint Kitts.
English colonization began in 1623 and working with the French quickly and violently displaced the indigenous Kalinago inhabitants and established sugar plantations worked by Africans slaves. This cooperation was an exception, as the French and British fought for centuries to control the island. The French finally ceded their claims to Saint Kitts to Great Britain in 1713 via the Treaty of Utrecht. While the French briefly recaptured the island in 1782, it was returned to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Brimstone Hill Fortress has a museum which does a good job of summarizing the country’s pre-20th Century history, as shown with this exhibit on the indigenous cultures.
The three islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, became a combined British territory in 1882. Anguilla was formally separated in 1980 and remains a British possession. Saint Kitts and Nevis achieved full independence in 1983.
Saint Kitts
Saint Kitts is larger and more developed than Nevis and offers more in terms of shopping, restaurants and nightlife. Most visitors arrange their lodging here because it has a wider range of options and there are more attractions than on Nevis.
Basseterre
Basseterre is the capital and commercial center for the country. The name is a French phrase for “low land”, reflecting its location on a low-lying coastal plain. The city was founded by French colonists around 1625, as it offered safe anchorage on the leeward (sheltered) side of the island. It’s also where cruise ships dock, often three or four at a time, and is full of cruisers spending their few hours in the country.
It’s an easy and interesting walk around the stores, government buildings and one-to-four story buildings with mostly wood construction. The streets are at right angles and the buildings display British Georgian, Victorian, and French colonial styles.
My favorite landmark is the Berkeley Memorial; a green tower located in a circular street intersection. It has a drinking fountain as well as four clock faces, each one facing one of the streets.
The Saint George Anglican Church is an imposing structure with formidable stone walls and a slate roof. Predecessor churches have been the site since the 1600s. In the bottom left hand of the following photo is our friend Joan, who coincidentally was visiting the country at the same time.
The interior is grand, in an understated Anglican fashion, with imposing columns, wide arches and a wooden roof supported by buttresses.
The Government Headquarters houses various ministries and administers citizenship, immigration and financial services.
Of note, Saint Kitts and Nevis established the world’s first formal “citizenship by investment” program in 1984. At one point, sales made up a quarter of the country’s GDP. To ensure good standing with the U.S., UK and EU, the country has implemented temporary residency requirements and biometric data collection. Currently, the cost is a $250,000 non-refundable donation to the government..
Independence Square is a pleasant place for a respite for both locals and visitors.
The park-like area revolves around an attractive stone fountain.
Frigate Bay
This bay has a popular beach and The Strip, a line of beach bars and restaurants. There’s a lot of partying on the beach with pub crawls, both day and night. We ate decent Mexican food at the Monkey Bar and saw live music at Mr. X’s Shiggidy Shack Beach Bar. We heard a good band (6-string bass, drums, electric keyboard) playing pop songs and standards.
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park
Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and sits on a high hill overlooking the Caribbean side of Saint Kitts. It’s one of the best-preserved historical fortifications in the Americas. It was designed by the British and built by Africans from 1690 to 1790 with locally mined limestone. It became a key British military stronghold in the Caribbean.
The fortress was considered impregnable, but in 1782 the French laid siege and eventually captured it. Their control lasted just a year, when the Treaty of Paris returned the island to the British.
The interior has a huge open area and many chambers within the perimeter walls, which are now part of a museum about the history of the fort and the area.
From the ramparts, the ocean panorama views are stunning.
The surrounding mountainous landscape is volcanic rock and limestone.
Nearby is Sint Eustatius (Statia), a Dutch Caribbean island known as The Golden Rock and famous for its dormant volcano nicknamed The Quill.
The British abandoned Brimstone Hill Fortress in 1854 primarily due to the decline in military importance and the high cost of maintaining outdated masonry.
Mount Liamuiga
The dormant volcano Mount Liamuiga at 3,800 ft / 1,160 m is the highest point in Saint Kitts and in the entire British Leeward Islands, as well as one of the tallest peaks in the eastern Caribbean archipelago. Its last verified eruption was about 1,800 years ago.
Peter and I decided to climb it and used Google Maps to get there, which gave us completely wrong directions to the trailhead. After receiving directions from locals, we found an access road off the Island Main Road near Newton Ground village. The road meanders through farmland and ends in a small dirt parking lot.
The trailhead starts at around 600 ft / 180 m in elevation and for a short while is a muddy and moderately steep incline. Then it becomes strenuous, especially with the many tree roots to climb over.
On the way up, we saw only a few other hikers. Towards the top quarter of the path, there are many stretches of boulders to crawl over, increasing in size the higher we went.
To say the least, we were happy and spent when we made it to the top of the 2 mi / 3.2 km trail (one-way) with an ascent of 2,400 ft / 730 m. It was much more challenging than we anticipated.
At the top, we first saw a heavily forested, half mile-wide caldera, which contained a shallow crater lake until 1959. From another point, we saw a slice of the ocean between the trees and mountain sides.
While descending, we soon realized it was even more difficult than coming up, more demanding finding footholes and balancing even though easier on the heart and lungs.
The four-mile round trip hike can be as short as four hours for the very fit and sure footed and up to eight hours for those who take frequent breaks. I feel I’m in pretty good shape from working out on a regular basis. Maybe it’s age, but we were closer to the longer duration.
Some people use a guide, but we didn’t find it was necessary as the trail is marked well enough.
Driving Around the Island
Nick drove Monica, Khadija and me around Saint Kitts, excluding the southeast peninsula, for late afternoon photos. We started on the Atlantic Ocean side where the water is fierce rather than the generally calm waves on the Caribbean side.
Saint John Anglican Church, close to Belle Vue, offers a serene setting and has splendid views of the ocean. The church is an active place of worship but was locked on the Thursday we were there.
It’s surrounded by a cemetery, which added to the serenity of the grounds while we read the gravestones.
Sandy Bay, between Saddlers Village and Parsons Ground, is a black sand beach and cove. Of note, this isn’t Sandy Bay Park in southeast Saint Kitts. Here, you can feel the power and vicissitudes of the waves and the wind.
In Parson Grounds, I met a group of Rastas who gave me a tour of the many murals in the village.
We passed through Sandy Point Town where a few days prior we visited the Rum Dawd Beach Bar & Grill. The establishment was operated by a grandfather while he babysat his grandson who was learning to walk (see the picture at the beginning of the post). Over fried potatoes and drinks, we awed at a classic Caribbean sunset over Pump Bay Beach.
On the way back to our lodgings, we saw a shipwreck close to New Guinea village.
There may be over 1,000 shipwrecks around Saint Kitts, just a few visible above the water. However, only ten or so of the underwater ones are regularly visited by divers
Nevis
Perhaps the most important thing we learned about Nevis is that it’s pronounced NE-vis, not NEV-is. It’s very small, mostly covered by forest, and has a laid-back and rural vibe. It even has natural hot springs and wild donkeys roaming freely across the island.
Hamilton House and the Museum of Nevis History
I primarily wanted to visit Nevis to see the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, a towering figure in American history. The location is now occupied by the Museum of Nevis in a reconstructed 18th-century Georgian-style stone building. The one room building seemed to have more African history, including the diaspora, than Nevis. In front, stands a bronze statue of Hamilton.
Next to the stone building is a wooden house restored a few years ago, which has a thorough exhibition of Hamilton’s life. It’s commonly referred to as the Hamilton House.
He was born while his mother was separated but not divorced from her husband. His parents, who never married, moved to Saint Croix with Alexander and his older brother. The father abandoned them when Alexander was ten and he became an orphan at age twelve when his mother died. He was then raised separately from his brother by a local merchant and worked as a clerk in a trading house. Community leaders were impressed with his work ethic and financial acumen and raised money for his education.
He sailed to Boston, then moved to New York where within a year he attended Kings College (now Columbia) but didn’t graduate. He became an aide-de-camp to George Washington in the Revolutionary War, a Federalist Papers author (pen name Publius) and Secretary of the Treasury where he established the Central Bank. He died at age 47 in a duel with U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804.
He completed building his only house in 1802 on a 32-acre, wooded estate, walking distance from where we live in NYC. The house has been moved twice and is now a U.S. National Memorial in Saint Nicholas Park. The Nevis Museum exhibit had a drawing of it.
Charlestown
Charlestown is the capital and chief town of Nevis, established around 1660. The shopping area is quaint with two-story wood and stone buildings with shops run by locals, Chinese and Caribbean Indians. In the center is a bronze bust of the first Premier of Nevis, Simeon Daniel.
Pinney's Beach
Pinney’s Beach is a very long, sandy and popular beach.
We stopped for a snack and drinks at one of the bars facing the beach.
Nevis Artisan Village
This collection of bungalow-shops offers local items from artistic items like jewelry and wood carvings to basic items such as soap and combs.
Saint Thomas Anglican Church
Saint Thomas is the oldest Anglican church in the Caribbean, started in 1625 on a hill overlooking the water towards Saint Kitts Island. There’s a cemetery outside the church where Samuel Jefferson is buried, believed to be the great-great-great-grandfather of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. The view of the channel with Saint Kitts is serene when contrasted with the above ground graves.
Nevis Peak
Nevis Peak is the highest point on the island rising to about 1,000 m / 3,250 ft. It’s a dormant volcano covered in lush rainforest and containing hot springs and fumaroles. It can be hiked by the ambitious and at least fairly fit. The following photograph captured a rainbow over the island.
Final Thoughts
A special treat was observing local customs and fashions. For instance, we were there a few weeks before Christmas and noticed women commonly wear reindeer antlers. Even security guards wore them while on duty.
We saw this early in the morning, as with the schoolgirls pictured below, throughout the day on the streets and late at night on bar waitresses.
This is probably no more than a fashion that caught on. However, there’s a “girl’s power” angle to it. Unlike male reindeer, which shed their antlers before Christmas, female reindeer retain their antlers throughout the winter until after they give birth in the spring. Thus, the millions of pictures of reindeers pulling Santa’s sleigh are, de facto, females.
After we returned home, I read that other Caribbean Islands have special Christmas fashions, probably including antler headbands. Even if this is the case, I’ve never seen it elsewhere and it will be forever linked in my mind to Saint Kitts and Nevis. This was a touching moment for me and one more reason to encourage everyone to visit this special country!
