Antigua is small enough that any base works, but each coast gives you a completely different holiday. Here is what each area is actually like, who it suits and what it costs.
The single most useful thing to know before booking: Antigua’s west and north-west coasts are the sheltered side — flat water, sunsets over the sea, most of the hotels and most of the restaurants. The east coast is windier, emptier and better for kitesurfing and quiet. The south, around English Harbour, is where the sailing, the history and the best food are, but the beaches are small.
Nowhere is more than about 45 minutes from anywhere else, so this is a question of what you want outside your door rather than what you can reach. Prices below are indicative nightly rates for a double room in high season; expect 30–40% less between May and November.
Hotel prices and availability via Trip.com
Each area links through to live hotel prices and availability on Trip.com, where most rooms can be cancelled free of charge.
from $180 The classic Antigua beach holiday
The north-west resort strip, ten minutes from St John’s and twenty from the airport. Long pale-sand beaches, flat swimming water, beach bars, watersports and the island’s densest cluster of all-inclusives — from big family resorts to adults-only boutiques.
⚖️ The busiest stretch of coast on the island — book elsewhere if you want quiet.
from $120 Self-catering, marinas and sunsets
A marina village with a supermarket, a golf course, restaurants around the docks and long, shallow Jolly Beach next door. Villas and apartments dominate, which makes it the best-value base on the island for a week or more — and the west coast delivers a sunset every night.
⚖️ Purpose-built rather than picturesque; you will want a hire car.
from $150 Yachts, history and the best restaurants
The south coast’s sailing capital, wrapped around two deep natural harbours and the UNESCO-listed dockyard. Small hotels, restored inns inside the dockyard itself, hillside guesthouses — and the island’s best concentration of good restaurants and bars.
⚖️ Harbour beaches are small; the great sand is a 20-minute drive away.
from $90 Cheapest beds, closest to real life
Guesthouses and small hotels in and around the capital, at prices no beach resort can match. You get the Saturday market, the cathedral, the museum and everyday Antigua on your doorstep, plus the shortest possible taxi to the cruise port.
⚖️ You are not on a beach — factor in a taxi or a hire car every day.
from $200 Reef-sheltered water and almost no crowds
Willikies, Long Bay and the Nonsuch Bay side of the island: a handful of resorts and villa estates scattered along a reef-protected Atlantic coast where the water is shallow, warm and flat, and Half Moon Bay and Devil’s Bridge are ten minutes away.
⚖️ Far from St John’s and the airport, and options are limited.
from $250 Where the luxury resorts hide
Cedar Grove, Boon Point, Hodges Bay and Five Islands: private headlands and small coves north and west of the capital, where the island’s best-known luxury and adults-only resorts sit on their own beaches with nothing around them.
⚖️ Expensive, and the resort is effectively your whole day unless you drive.
from $200 The most remote night you can book here
A handful of lodges and a couple of very expensive resorts on an island of about 1,500 people, 90 minutes by ferry or 15 by air. Almost nothing is walkable, almost nothing is scheduled, and the beach outside is 17 miles long and empty.
⚖️ Very limited choice, limited services and you must plan ferries around it.
Antigua has a lot of all-inclusive resorts and they make sense if you want to switch off completely, especially on the north-west headlands where there is nothing within walking distance anyway. The trade-off is real, though: the island’s food scene — the beach bars at Ffryes, the restaurants around English Harbour, the roti stands in St John’s — is one of its genuine pleasures, and an all-inclusive package quietly prices you out of using it.
A reasonable middle path is bed-and-breakfast on the west coast with a hire car, or self-catering at Jolly Harbour where the supermarket is good and a dozen restaurants are walkable.
High season runs mid-December to mid-April, and Christmas and New Year are a category of their own — expect to pay double and to find minimum-stay requirements of five to ten nights. Rates fall sharply from May, and the deepest discounts are August to October, which is also the peak of hurricane season.
As a rough guide: guesthouses in and around St John’s from about US$90; mid-range west-coast hotels US$180–300; well-known beach resorts US$300–600; the north-west luxury properties US$600 and up. Self-catering villas at Jolly Harbour sleeping four often work out cheaper per person than two hotel rooms.
Book early for the winter high season — the best-value properties on the west coast go first, and Sailing Week (late April) and Carnival (late July to early August) fill English Harbour and St John’s respectively.
Check what “beachfront” means. Some hotels sit on a road with a beach opposite; some are on a headland with a swimming platform rather than sand. And check the transfer time from V.C. Bird International Airport: 20 minutes to Dickenson Bay, 35 to Jolly Harbour, 45 to English Harbour, and longer to the far east coast.
Compare every property on the islands in one place, with free cancellation on most rooms.
A beach for every day of the year, a UNESCO-listed Georgian dockyard, warm water in every month and a sunset party that has run for four decades. Compare tours, tickets and cruises and book in a couple of taps.
Dickenson Bay or the west coast around Jolly Harbour. Both give you a long swimmable beach, food within walking distance and short transfers from the airport, and both are close enough to the rest of the island for day trips.
Not if you are on the west coast and happy on one beach. You will want one if you plan to reach the east coast, Fig Tree Drive or English Harbour more than once or twice — taxis are metered by government tariff and add up quickly.
It is one of the pricier Eastern Caribbean islands, mainly because almost everything is imported. Accommodation and restaurant meals are the big costs; buses, beaches and roadside food are cheap. Self-catering at Jolly Harbour is the most effective way to bring the total down.
Yes, but the choice is very limited — a handful of small lodges and a couple of very expensive resorts, with the island still rebuilding after Hurricane Irma in 2017. Book well ahead, take cash, and arrange transport before you arrive.
