St Lucia Family Travel Guide

Gros Piton is the one you can climb and it is a real hike. About two and a half thousand feet, four hours up and down, guide compulsory, steep and rooty rather than technical. Fit teenagers manage it. Ten year olds mostly do not enjoy it.

Petit Piton is not a family climb. It is steeper, has rope sections, and people get hurt on it. If somebody in your group is set on a summit, make it Gros Piton.

The best way to see them is from a boat. A west coast catamaran day from Rodney Bay or Castries down to Soufriere and back gives you the view, a snorkel stop and no car sickness. This is the day I would book first on this island.

Sugar Beach sits right between them and it is public. The resort occupies it but Saint Lucian beaches are public by law. You can arrive by water taxi, use the sand, and buy a drink. Nobody will move you on.

The famous view is not from the beach. It is from the road above Soufriere and from the water. If a picture matters to you, drive the hill or take the boat, because from most hotel loungers you can only see one of them.

A lot of the famous hotels are adults only. Including several of the ones in the photographs people arrive with. Check the age policy before you fall in love with a room, because the answer is often sixteen or eighteen and it is not negotiable.

The family friendly stock is mostly in the north. Rodney Bay, Gros Islet and the Cap Estate end. Bigger resorts, kids clubs, calmer water, restaurants you can walk to, and a supermarket. That is where I put families almost every time.

Couples pricing raises the floor for everybody. Rooms here are priced against honeymoon budgets rather than family ones, and a room that sleeps five is scarce and expensive. Interconnecting rooms are usually the answer and they need booking early.

It is a wonderful honeymoon. If that is what you are actually booking, this is the island. Nothing else in the region does drama, privacy and a plunge pool with a view as well, and I sell a lot of it.

Good morning, always. Bus drivers, shopkeepers, the woman selling mangoes. Skip it and the service cools.

Friday night is Gros Islet. The street party. Grilled fish, music, locals and visitors together. Go early with kids and leave by ten.

Kweyol is the second language. Everyone speaks English. A bonjou back gets a grin.

Tip ten percent, and check if it is already added. Many resorts add service. Eastern Caribbean dollars or US dollars both work, US is easier.

Cover up in town. Swimwear is for the beach. Castries and Soufriere are towns where people work.

What the drive in bit actually is. You park, walk a short boardwalk, and look at a gray steaming field of vents and boiling pools. Twenty minutes with a guide. Interesting, quite small, and it smells strongly of eggs the whole time.

The mud baths are the bit children love. Warm mineral pools where you coat yourself in gray volcanic mud, let it dry and rinse it off. Take swimwear you do not care about, because the sulphur stains it permanently and no wash gets it out.

Diamond Falls next door is the better looking half. A botanical garden with a waterfall streaked orange and yellow by the mineral water. Easy, flat, shaded, and it works for the whole age range in a way the volcano field does not.

Go early or go late. This is the standard cruise excursion and between ten and two it is coach after coach. At half eight in the morning it is quiet and the light is better.

The currency is the East Caribbean dollar and it is pegged. About two point seven to one US dollar, fixed. US dollars are accepted almost everywhere but you will usually get change in EC and often at a rounder rate than the true one. Small amounts, so do not fight it.

All inclusive is the dominant model and it is worth it here. Restaurants outside the resorts are scattered and reaching them means a taxi on a mountain road at night. For a family this is one of the islands where the fixed price package earns its keep.

Taxis are expensive because the distances are real. Rates are set and published. Castries to Soufriere and back for a family is a serious number. Factor it in before you assume you will explore casually.

Tax and service are added and they add up. A ten percent service charge and a government tax on top of quoted rates is normal. Ask if a quoted room rate is inclusive, because half the time it is not.

Five nights. One resort. Rodney Bay in the north for calm beaches and restaurants, or Soufriere in the south for the Pitons. Do not try both.

Seven nights. Four north, three south, or the reverse. The drive between them is two hours of hairpins. Do it once, in daylight.

Ten nights. Add a boat day to Martinique or a catamaran down the coast. Or just stay longer at the second base. Nobody regrets it.

Getting there. Hewanorra airport in the south is the international one. Rodney Bay is ninety minutes away. Soufriere is forty. Plan the first night accordingly.

Rodney Bay. The base. Reduit Beach, the marina restaurants and calm water. Most families should sleep here and go south by boat.

Soufriere by water taxi. The Pitons from the sea, Sulphur Springs, Diamond Falls and lunch under the peaks. The single best day on the island.

Anse Chastanet. The snorkel from the beach with the reef right there. Book the loungers and go early.

Pigeon Island. The fort, the climb and the beach below. A half day at the north end that suits every age.

The rainforest. A zipline or an aerial tram at Babonneau, then the east coast villages on the way back. For a second week or older children.

Skip it if you want an easy flop and drop. The transfer is long, the roads are hard, and getting to the good bits takes effort. If the family just wants a beach and a pool with no friction, Aruba or the Bahamas does that better.

Skip it if you have a toddler and a tight budget. The family room stock is thin, it is priced for couples, and a long transfer with a two year old at the end of a long flight is a hard start to a week.

A St Lucia all inclusive family resort is out there, you just have to look past the couples marketing. A few properties in the north do family rooms and kids clubs well. Ask an advisor rather than booking off a honeymoon ad.

Choose it over Barbados if you want landscape. Barbados is flat and gentle and better for independent travel. St Lucia has mountains, rainforest, a volcano and the most dramatic view in the region. They are ninety minutes apart and completely different trips.

Choose it over Jamaica for a smaller, quieter version of the same idea. Both are green and mountainous. Jamaica has more culture, more music and more scale. St Lucia is smaller, calmer and easier to get your head around in a week.

Who it is perfect for. Honeymooners, obviously. And families with children old enough to hike, snorkel and sit in a car, who would rather have a spectacular week in one place than a convenient one.

It changed hands fourteen times between Britain and France. Which is why the official language is English, the everyday language is a French based Creole called Kwéyòl, and the place names are French while the road signs are British. Everybody speaks English to you.

Friday night in Gros Islet is a street party and it is for locals. Music, grills on the pavement, the whole village out. Go early with children, eat, and leave by nine when it becomes an adult night. It is the best food on the island.

Two Nobel laureates from a population of under two hundred thousand. Arthur Lewis for economics and Derek Walcott for literature. St Lucians will tell you this and they are entitled to. It is the highest rate per head anywhere in the world.

There are two airports and it matters enormously. Hewanorra in the far south takes the long haul flights. George Charles in Castries takes small regional ones and is ten minutes from the north hotels. Check which one your ticket says before you book a transfer.

A St Lucia family vacation needs one extra day built in for the transfer. Between the flight and the drive north or south, day one is mostly travel. Plan a slow first evening rather than an activity.

Rodney Bay. Five nights. Reduit beach, calm water, a resort with a kids’ club, Pigeon Island for the fort and the view.

Soufriere by boat. A day. The Pitons from the water, the drive in volcano, the mud baths, a swim at Anse Chastanet.

The rainforest. A day. The aerial tram, a zip line for older kids, the botanical gardens and the waterfall.

How far is the airport from the hotels? Hewanorra International is in Vieux Fort at the southern tip, and most hotels are in the north. It is roughly forty miles and takes an hour and a half on a good day. Book the transfer ahead, don’t try to improvise it after a long flight.

Should you do all inclusive? Yes, and it is worth it here. Restaurants outside the resorts are scattered and reaching them means a taxi on a mountain road at night. For a family, this is one of the islands where the fixed price package earns its keep.

When should you go? December through April is the dry season and the island at its best, but it books out early and costs the most. May and early June is the value window, rates drop and the dry season is only just ending. August through October is wet and peak hurricane season, buy named storm cover at booking if you go then.

Do kids get carsick on the roads? It’s a real planning factor. The west coast road is narrow with mountain switchbacks for an hour at a time. Sit anybody who suffers in the front, bring the tablets, and take the water taxi where you can.

Is St Lucia good for a family with a toddler? Think it through first. The family room stock is thin, it’s priced for couples, and a long transfer with a two year old at the end of a long flight is a hard start to a week. A few properties in the north do family rooms and kids clubs well, ask an advisor rather than booking off a honeymoon ad.

What is the best day trip with kids? The chocolate estates. Working cocoa plantations where children pick pods, roast beans and grind their own bar to take home. Two or three hours, educational, and it’s the activity families mention most often afterward.