Things to do
What people actually fill their days with here, from the harbour to the hills.
Things to doEditor's PickNelson's Dockyard
English Harbour
A Georgian naval dockyard that never became a museum piece: the eighteenth-century stone buildings around the quay still serve the yachts moored against it. It is the centre of Antigua's UNESCO World Heritage site, and you can walk the whole of it.
Discover
Things to doEditor's PickShirley Heights
English Harbour
The ridge of old gun batteries above English Harbour, and the view that ends up on most photographs of Antigua: both harbours below you at once, full of masts. Go towards the end of the day, when the light comes across the water.
Things to doBetty's Hope
East Coast
Two stone windmill towers standing in open grass, one of them restored with its sails back on. This was one of the island's first large sugar estates, and the site is now a museum of what that industry was and who it was built on.
Things to doDevil's Bridge
East Coast
A natural limestone arch on the Atlantic headland at Indian Town Point, cut out by the swell over a very long time. The sea drives through the gaps and blows back out of them, which is the reason to come and also the reason to keep well back from the edge.
Things to doFig Tree Drive
West Coast
The one properly green road on a dry island: a narrow lane through the hills of Saint Mary, under mango and banana, with fruit stalls at the turns and a zip-line strung across the ravine.
Things to doGreat Bird Island
East Coast
An uninhabited island off the north-east coast, reached by boat, with a small beach, a short climb to the cliffs and reef in the shallows on the way. It sits inside the protected area that shelters the North Sound islands.
Stingray City
East Coast
A shallow sandbar off Seatons on the east coast where southern stingrays gather and you can stand chest-deep among them with a guide. Half a day, and the only one of these outings that works equally well for children.