I was begging Nico to go to New York for Christmas and new year holidays but unfortunately its complicated for me to get my visa done from Guadeloupe. Disappointed, i told him we can go anywhere but i didn't feel like going back to France since we just went back home 4 months ago. So we start checking all the Caribbean islands and having a hard time choosing. The first came to mind is visa free islands and English speaking countries. I don't want to be in french territory for this holiday.
After so many consideration we are down to 3 islands, all nearby and easily connected. Its Antigua, St Lucia & Barbados. And since Barbados came as the top traveler choices everywhere we checked, we decided to choose Barbados.
Barbados from the plane
Everything was pre-booked. We are budget traveler and we only have one week in Barbados. Time and money is important. We rent a car for a week (nico manage to find cheap rental car company), we stayed at Airbnb (we love airbnb, the good way to see and experience local life,) bought simcard for BB18 and used waze to go around.
Barbados is beautiful, definitely better beaches than Guadeloupe. We roughly visited 3-4 beaches per day, depending on the time we have. Since we couldnt get any Barbados guide before hand, we took a copy of "Barbados in a Nutshell" at the airport and practically followed all the suggestions inside.
We arrived in Barbados on 24th Dec and thank god we manage to get our grocery done. Everything was closed for 4 days due to Christmas holiday, so if u plan to go during christmas, plan it well so you wont go hungry.
Barbadian Dollar
Bridgetown
Christmas day
We stayed in Bridgetown and Calisle Bay was only 20mins walk from our place but we decided to go to the one further first. Our first day was utterly disaster since no one bother to check and plan where to go (our host throw a christmas party the night before, thats the reason why actually). Its easy to missed the beach here since the sign and the path to the beach was small. Some don't even have any signage and parking is another problem.
SURVIVAL TIPS :
- Look up to know your beach, All the beach is practically closer to each other and on the same route.
- You can rent beach chair for BB40. (*we plan to use our beach towel but its feel so weird to lay down in between people who sits on the beach chair. Feels like there's a class different on the beach lol) Renting is for as long as you want to stay.
- There's not many beach which has tree to take up cover in barbados, And its freaking hot.
- Barbadian dollar can be change at the bank, just make sure you have you id with you.
25th DEC 2016
WEST COAST BEACH
1. Batts Rock Beach
- This beach is practically deserted and i dont understand why. Its probably because there's no hotels nearby. There'a an area with calm water for swimming and the view is amazing.
2. Sandy Lane Beach
- We are actually looking for Payne bay but missed it. So we end up at Sandy Lane beach. The beach was crowded with hotel guests, its a long stretch of beach and calm water for swimming. Rihanna house should be nearby but Nico didnt bother to look lol.
3. Reeds Bay
- Reeds bay is a beach near to the church. Water is calm, not many people and there's beach chair for rental. And i only have one picture here..why????
4. Mullins Bay
- This beach is crowded, probably because of hotels guests who didn't bother to go anywhere else and stay here. I dont know why, im not a fan of this beach. Water is calm and good for swimming.
5. Speightstown Beach
- We love picnic at the beach ad it is so Guadeloupeen style. So we did the same on our first day in Barbados. We are lucky to find shade and this is the view we had. We did swimming here too. Calm water mostly everywhere in the West Coast.
6
. Animal flower cave
- Since we already came this far, we decided to go up north to the animal flower cave. It was closed due to christmas holiday but we still get to roam around and see the cliff. This is the northernmost part of the island. Beautiful and scary at the same time. Please dont slipped and fall.
26th DEC 2016
7. Brandon Beach
- We start late and was tired from the day before. We heading to the West coast again since there's still plenty of beach to check. Brandon beach is famous with cruise ship passenger since this is the closes beach from the port. Its a long stretch of sandy beach with beautiful turquoise water. Unfortunately we didnt stay long since nico doesnt like the feeling of the sea floor, its feel mushy he said.
8. Fitts Village
- I dont have any photo at Fitts Village :( The beach was small but equally beautiful. Definitely not crowded since everybody come to take picture and left.
9. Folkestone Marine Reserve.
- Our next stop since we haven't do any snorkeling yet. Its was cloudy and light rain when we did our snorkeling, the water wasnt so clear and no turtles seen. But it wasnt bad i guess.
10. Juma's Restaurant
- Lunch for today. Its a french/asian restaurant in Speightstown. We were seated at the first floor with lovely view. After so much snorkeling we were so hungry and was happy that we didnt waited too long for the food. There's few other table that came before us and still didnt get their food and some even get upset and left. oh no....
Thai Green Curry
Nico took flying fish, Barbados specialty
11. Paynes Bay
- My favorite beach in Barbados. Because this is where we saw turtles right from the beach. The water was deep, you definitely cant stand but its calm. And while swimming, turtles might be just at your back taking a gulp of air. When we did out snorkeling here, the water visibility was bad, maybe because its right at the beach but even that we manage to see 2 turtles. So if u go further you might get better view. We spent the rest of the day here, just swim, read and sleep. Its soooo good.
