Ah Trini Travelogue Trinidad & Tobago's most travelled blogger through 99 countries. Create and Re-Engineer your life for travel.
Getting from Trinidad to Tobago is an easy plan; no hassle, short flight, no crazy drivers that one has to worry about in Trinidad. If you’re in Tobago, after taking the 14 minute flight from Trinidad, your next steps should go something like this …
- Call pre-arranged taxi rental company to pick you up from airport and head straight to the rental company. Fill out paper work and take car out.
- Depending on what time you get in, there are two logical options
- If you come in anytime BEFORE sunset, go directly to the beach – Store Bay or Pigeon Point. They’re close (2 min drive in either direction) and proceed to eat and get your water or tan on.
- If you come in anytime AFTER sunset, go directly to the hotel, check in and go for dinner and check back to hotel for drinks. If you’re new, you won’t know any places to go for drinks. (MyTobago.info maintains an excellent listing of places to eat in Tobago – updated every three months and has pertinent info.)
In High Season (Christmas time [Dec 15- Jan 3rd] or the two weeks after Carnival) Always prearrange your accomodations and rentals from Trinidad … if you don’t, you will probably not have availability or you will be charged a king’s ransom – either way, not a great start to a trip.
We couldn’t find a taxi, so I went up to a guard, asked him where to find a taxi, he directed me to another guard booth. She said there was none, but then asked a friend who with her liming to give us a lift to our homestay. Of course, he couldn’t do it immediately as he was looking in the parking lot for his keys to his house (seriously!) … so now it is the three of us (female guard, her friend, and me) looking through an empty parking lot for a bunch of keys. After we found the keys, the friend gave us a lift to the hotel … no cash, compliments of the car keys 😀
After getting to the hotel, it was late – hence dinner and drinks – however trying to find an open bar on Christmas night is next to impossible – but we were quite lucky to find a local bar that was serving.
In the morning, we collected our car and went off to Store Bay for a couple hours in the water. The other thing about Store Bay is that it is the collection point for tours to the Buccoo Reef, Nylon Pool and Coral Gardens. Driving into Store Bay, many guys will wave at you trying to sell you tours at different prices – there are only 4-6 boats that do the tours on any given day – twice daily (leaving between 11 and 11.30am or 2 and 2.30pm).
The tours consist of the following sequence of events:
- Journey to the Buccoo Reef
- Snorkel in the Coral Gardens
- Swim in Nylon Pool – use the coral sand to exfoliate your skin
- Stop off at No Mans’ Land for some BBQ and Rum Punch (optional and usually on a weekend, depends on weather, and depends on nice you are to the tour guides)
If you want to get a decent price – talk to a couple guys. They’ll give a piece of paper with their names and phone numbers and ask them their price (a good price is something between $50 and $70 TT ($8 – $11 USD)). All the boats are fairly do the same route, all have glass bottom sections and they all leave around the same time.
Once you’re set, then you’re off for breakfast at the Store Bay food sheds and then hit the beach and go on your tour. BTW – if you’re in Tobago, you have to do the tour – it’s completely worth it, just to bathe in the Nylon Pool.
Store Bay
Nylon Pool
No Mans’ Land
