Tobago

Introducing Tobago

While Trinidad booms with industry and parties all night, tiny Tobago (just 42km across) slouches in a deck chair with a Caribe in hand watching its crystalline waters shimmer in the sun. Though Tobago is proud of its rainforests, fantastic dive sites, stunning aquamarine bays and nature reserves, it’s OK with not being mentioned in a Beach Boys song. It accepts its tourists without vigor, but rather with languor, and allows them to choose between plush oceanside hotels or tiny guesthouses in villages where you walk straight to the open-air bar with sandy bare feet, and laugh with the locals drinking rum.

When Hurricane Flora ripped by in 1963, she basically blew away the agro-based plantation economy. The government then turned its rebuilding efforts to tourism. Though there’s enough infrastructure to make navigating Tobago easy, it’s not overrun…yet. Don’t dally in visiting because times are changing. Sleepy Tobago is increasingly being woken by a jostling tourism industry that loves it for its great value, beauty and genuinely friendly culture.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009