The Pitons are two hours south. The boat gets you there happier.
Which catamaran actually stops long enough to snorkel. What the mud baths cost once you are through the gate. Whether the Gros Piton climb is worth losing a beach morning. Reviews of every tour you can book on St Lucia.
Where the tours leave from
The four bookings a St Lucia week gets built around.
A day that does the island by road and by water, the warm mud under the Pitons, a full day on deck, and the climb itself. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01Road down, water backSt. Lucia Land and Sea TourSouth by road in the morning, back up the coast by water in the afternoon. More people book this than anything else on St Lucia.
02The Soufriere classicSt Lucia Diamond Mineral and Mud Baths Plus Waterfall AdventureWarm mineral mud straight off the volcano, then a rinse under Diamond Falls with the Pitons standing over the whole thing.
03The day on deckSt Lucia Full-Day Catamaran Sightseeing Cruise With SnorkelingDown the leeward coast under sail with a snorkel stop and lunch aboard. The one day nobody suggests cutting.
04The climbGros Piton Hike with Dannyboy & Co.Two hours up Gros Piton and the same back down, with a guide from the village at its foot. Go at first light.
Three kinds of day afloat, and what it costs to get aboard each.
Almost everything worth seeing on St Lucia faces west, which is why the boats do so well here. Pick the one that matches the day you want: a long run south, a short reef stop, or two hours with the sun going down.
Rodney Bay at the top, Soufriere at the bottom, Castries in between.
St Lucia is twenty-seven miles long and the good days sit at both ends of it. Six places to start from, and what each one is genuinely best at.
The days out St Lucia books more than any other.
Every St Lucia tour →These carry more travellers than anything else here, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
St. Lucia Land and Sea Tour
See St. Lucia by road and speedboat, with volcano mud baths, waterfall, Pitons views, local lunch, snorkeling, and hotel pickup.
From · $115
Read our review →
2
ATV Tour in St Lucia
from $107
3
St Lucia Full-Day Catamaran Sightseeing Cruise With Snorkeling
from $145
4
St Lucia Diamond Mineral and Mud Baths Plus Waterfall Adventure
from $159
5
Rainforest Hike and Waterfall Safari
from $66
6
Project Chocolat Tree to Bar Tour at Hotel Chocolat Saint Lucia
from $124
7
Soufriere Volcano Experience
from $135
8
Private Full Day Charter: St Lucia Boat Tour to Soufriere
from $250
Nearly everything St Lucia is known for sits in one valley.
Drive into a collapsed crater, sit in the warm mud, rinse under a waterfall and eat with the Pitons filling the window. It is a long day from the north end and nobody comes back regretting it.
Castries: market morning, then get out of town.
Everything in Castries →
The capital is a working port, not a resort. Come on a market morning for the cocoa sticks and the bay leaf, walk the square under the saman tree, then take the road or the boat south. These three carry more travellers than anything else leaving Castries.
North to south and back
One vehicle, one driver, the whole west coast: the fishing villages, the drive-in volcano, a waterfall and the Pitons. It is a lot of road, and it is the only way to see the island end to end in a day.
Leave from the harbour instead
The catamarans tie up in the same harbour as the cruise ships and run the coast to Soufriere. You get the swim stop and the shade, and you skip the hairpins entirely.
Rum, green figs and saltfish
Cocoa tea, bakes off a griddle and rum from the distillery at Roseau, usually in that order. The good ones sit you down with people who actually cook the food rather than describe it.
Above the road, the rainforest is somebody else’s problem.
The interior is steep, wet and almost entirely forest, which is why so much of it is crossed on a wire or a tram rather than on foot. Aerial trams run at a walking pace through the crowns; the zip courses drop you across the same valleys a lot faster.
Every canopy day →
Gros Islet, Rodney Bay and the causeway to Pigeon Island.
The top of the island is where the hotels are and where the water is calmest. Pigeon Island is joined to the mainland by a causeway now, with two beaches, a ruined fort and the best view back down the coast. On Friday, Gros Islet closes its streets and cooks in them.
- 1St. Lucia Land and Sea Tourfrom $115
- 2Jeep & Zipline Adventure in St. Luciafrom $165
- 3SeaTrek St. Luciafrom $118
What a day out on St Lucia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The island has a reputation for being expensive, and the list under fifty dollars quietly argues with it.
Market walks, town tours, the short hops out of the harbour and a few of the cocoa estates.
The standards: mud baths and falls, the catamaran down to Soufriere, the zip courses, the Gros Piton climb.
- 1St. Lucia Land and Sea Tourfrom $115
- 2ATV Tour in St Luciafrom $107
- 3St Lucia Full-Day Catamaran Sightseeing Cruise With Snorkelingfrom $145
Private drivers for a whole day, chartered boats and the land-and-sea trips that fill one from end to end.
Three things the next island along cannot offer.
Beaches and rum run the length of the Caribbean. A crater you drive into, a mountain climbed from the village at its foot, and a cocoa estate that hands you the pod do not.
The drive-in volcano
The road runs straight into the caldera at Sulphur Springs, past vents that hiss and stain the rock yellow and grey. The bathing pools sit downstream where the water has cooled to something you can sit in, and the mud is warm and comes off grey. Rinse under Diamond Falls afterwards, and accept that the sulphur stays in swimwear for weeks.
- 1St Lucia Diamond Mineral and Mud Baths Plus Waterfall Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 589 reviews
- 2Soufriere Volcano Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 486 reviews
- 3Saint Lucia Sulphur Springs Rejuvenating Mud Bath Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 320 reviews
Gros Piton, from the bottom
The larger of the two peaks is climbed from a village at its foot, with a guide from the interpretive centre and no way around that. Roughly two hours up over roots and loose volcanic rock, and the same again coming down. First light is the hour: the trail is in full sun by mid-morning and cloud builds on the summit through the afternoon.
- 1Gros Piton Hike with Dannyboy & Co.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 210 reviews
- 2Gros Piton Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 89 reviews
- 3Gros Piton Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 42 reviews
Cocoa, tree to bar
The slopes behind Soufriere grow fine-flavour cocoa, and the estates up there let you take a pod off the tree, then ferment, roast, winnow and grind it yourself. You come away with a bar you made badly and a much clearer idea of why the good stuff costs what it does.
- 1Hot Chocolate Tours St. Lucia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 240 reviews
- 2Private Chocolate Making Class★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 22 reviews
- 3Chocolate Decadence St.Lucia★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 17 reviews
Four St Lucian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on guides, gate hours and one sailing a day, none of which take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Gros Piton Hike with Dannyboy & Co.The climb only goes with a guide from the centre at the foot of the mountain, and the early starts are the ones that beat the heat.
- 02Saint Lucia Sulphur Springs Rejuvenating Mud Bath TourThe springs keep gate hours and the pools are shared. Late afternoon is the crowd; the first slot is the quiet one.
- 03St Lucia Full-Day Catamaran Sightseeing Cruise With SnorkelingThe full-day boats down to Soufriere sail once and fill fast whenever a ship is in at Castries.
- 04Project Chocolat Tree to Bar Tour at Hotel Chocolat Saint LuciaThe estate above Soufriere runs to a fixed daily timetable and keeps the tree-to-bar sessions small.
Rain crosses the ridge most afternoons and changes almost nothing.
This is a rainforest island. Showers arrive fast, sit over the interior for twenty minutes and clear, usually while the coast stays dry. The days that ignore the weather completely are the wet ones anyway: the mud baths, the falls, and anywhere with a roof and a still under it.
By place — north end to south
Pigeon Island down to the Pitons: the week almost everybody ends up doing.
Gros PitonThe newest St Lucia tour reviews.
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