Jolly Harbour

Antigua: Open-Air Tuk-Tuk Rainforest & 3-Beach Tour

Antigua is mostly dry scrub and sugar-cane flats, but the south-west corner rises into hills green enough to be called rainforest, and Fig Tree Drive threads right through it past fruit stalls and old estate villages. Doing it in an open tuk-tuk beats a minibus by a wide margin — you can hear and smell the place. The route then drops back to the coast for three beach stops, so you get the island’s two best faces in one trip.

• Fig Tree Drive — the island’s only stretch of true rainforest road
• Three different west-coast beaches in one afternoon
• Open-sided tuk-tuk, so the views and the breeze are the point

Antigua: Clear Kayak Mangrove & Reef Snorkel Tour

Antigua’s mangrove creeks are the nursery for everything that later lives on the reef, and a clear-bottomed kayak is the least intrusive way in — you glide over roots, sea grass and shoals of juvenile fish without an engine anywhere near them. The water inside the mangroves is flat and shallow, so no kayaking experience is needed, and the trip finishes with a guided snorkel on nearby reef.

• Transparent kayaks over sea grass, reef and mangrove roots
• Sheltered, flat water suitable for complete beginners
• Guided snorkel stop on shallow reef

Antigua: Transparent Boat Tour to Bird & Hell’s Gate Islands

Antigua’s North Sound is a maze of uninhabited islets and reef inside a protected marine park, and the transparent-hulled boat is a smart way to see it — the coral, rays and fish are visible from your seat, which suits mixed groups where not everyone wants to swim. Great Bird Island gives you a ten-minute climb to a cliff edge with tropicbirds wheeling below, and Hell’s Gate is the arch every Antiguan photograph eventually gets around to.

• See-through hull, so the reef is visible without getting in
• Great Bird Island — nesting red-billed tropicbirds and a short cliff walk
• Hell’s Gate, a natural limestone arch standing out of the sea

Ffryes Beach

West-coast sunsets and a beach bar

A wide, uncrowded sweep of west-coast sand between Valley Church and Darkwood, with a couple of famous beach bars, easy parking and the best sunset on the island for anyone who can’t face the drive up to Shirley Heights.

Fig Tree Drive

The island’s only rainforest road

A 12 km lane through the green south-western hills, where mango, banana (the local “fig”) and breadfruit crowd the road and fruit stalls appear at every bend. It links Old Road to Swetes past the zipline park and the trailheads for Mount Obama, Antigua’s highest point.

St John’s

The capital, the market and the quays

A working Caribbean capital of about 22,000 people, where two white baroque towers rise above a grid of shopfronts and rum shops. Heritage and Redcliffe Quay bring the cruise crowds; the Saturday public market, the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda and the back streets are where the city actually happens.