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Barbados Travel Guide: Reviews, photos, & videos
Pear-shaped Barbados, 21 miles long and 14 miles across, is one of the most temperate and lush Caribbean islands, with hibiscus, oleander and poinsettias growing wild in the island’s hilly interior. Most of the hotels hug the sandy Caribbean coastline on the western side of the island, while the rugged eastern side, facing the Atlantic Ocean, is less developed. Colonized by the British for more than 300 years, until 1966, Barbados still shows signs of British influence, in the architecture of old churches and farmhouses, in remnants of old plantations—and by still driving on the left side of the road.
The claim that rum was first invented on Barbados may be the subject of some debate, but the history of the spicy spirit is deeply intertwined with that of the island. Rum has been distilled on Barbados since the British settled the island and fields rustling sugar canes serve as a reminder of its economic importance to this day. Sample your way though Bridgetown’s many rum shops—all for educational purposes of course. Take a tram into the underworld at Harrison's Cave, a series of coral limestone caverns 160 feet under the ground filled with hundreds of stalagmites with stalactites. Go for a walk amongst lilies and red poinsettias in the 50-acre Flower Forest in the Scotland District, the hilly highlands protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
