(If you just want the link to my photo albums, go to the end.)
Flight reference: I maintain a spreadsheet of Caribbean inter-island airplane routes.
I managed to cram all of my dive gear into an international carry-on size rollaboard and everything else into my overstuffed backpack. Cape Air allows 1 personal item (36 linear inches) + 1 carry-on (45 linear inches, 50 lbs), so no problems there. Winair allows 1 personal item (15"x10"x7") + 1 carry-on (22"x12"x8", 13 lbs), so I had to pay for a checked bag and move a lot of stuff from my backpack to my suitcase to make my backpack light enough to be considered a carry-on item (though they generously let me go slightly over the limit). Contour allows 1 personal item + 1 carry-on (22"x14"x9"), and I didn't see mention of a weight limit.
Reference: baggage requirements by airline.
I brought UK-style power adapters/converters, but helpfully all the places I stayed had converters, so I didn't need them. I always travel with a USB power bank, which I made heavy use of, especially for driving directions. I'd recently bought a new Anker USB power bank (with a built-in USB-C cable and capacity display), as well as a backup cell phone with the Google Fi international coverage plan; Google Fi uses T-mobile, which is compatible with FLOW and so covers a lot of the Caribbean, including St Kitts & Nevis and Dominica. I also brought some Eastern Caribbean Dollars from past trips, although this isn't necessary as the currency is pegged to the US dollar (US$1.00 = EC$2.70) and US cash was accepted everywhere (with change given in XCD). I suspect many places took credit cards, at least for larger purchases, but I tend to stick to cash as much as possible when I travel in the Caribbean just in case.
There are online customs & immigration forms to be completed before arriving in St Kitts & Nevis and Dominica. Other things I consistently do before travel are download offline Google maps, create my own Google map with relevant sites, add links to multi-stop driving directions to my calendar for easy reference, and load up my kindle with ebooks by local authors.
Dominica is a remarkably steep and hilly volcanic island. Less than 300 square miles (~750 square kilometers) in area, it boasts nine active volcanic centers, one of the highest concentrations of potentially active volcanoes in the world. The highest of these volcanoes, Morne Diablotin, reaches an elevation of 4747 feet (1447 meters), while Morne Trois Pitons is nearly as high. Dominica's geothermal features include the Boiling Lake, the second-largest hot lake in the world, and many sulfur springs, steam vents, and bubbling mud pools. (More on Dominica's geology and volcanism here.) Dominica is covered in tropical rainforest, with average rainfall on the east coast regularly exceeding 17 feet (~5 meters) and exposed mountainsides sometimes receiving almost twice that, and the island has over 80 rivers and waterfalls and is prone to frequent flooding and landslides.
The dramatic topography of Dominica continues underwater, with wall diving immediately offshore. Off the southwest, the Soufrière-Scotts Head Marine Reserve is a submerged extinct volcanic crater with pinnacles and volcanic vents. These conditions have led to the area being a favorite of not only scuba divers, but also freedivers.
I usually start my travel planning by looking up the dive operators on each island using Google Maps, PADI, and SSI, and searching ScubaBoard. I also check facebook pages of dive sites, articles in dive publications (such as this DAN article on Dominica), and reviews on Tripadvisor and Google Maps. That usually narrows it down quickly to areas to look for lodging, and I contact possible dive operators for availability. Predictably, the diving in Dominica is all on the leeward side of the island, with more reviews for diving on the south end of the island than the north. My first choice was Nature Island Dive in Soufriere, which happily had availability. I considered splitting my time between there and Cabrits Dive in Portsmouth to get to some different sites; I didn't want to make the trip much longer, but managed to squeeze in one day of diving with them on my way back to the airport. Dive Dominica just south of Roseau also had good reviews, but as the closest dive op to the main port, I figured they would get most of the cruise ship divers. I was satisfied with my choices, and would happily dive with both Nature Island Dive and Cabrits Dive again.
I dove 5 consecutive mornings (10 dives) with Nature Island Dive. Most days there were 10-12 divers on the boat, and we split into two groups. They also often had discover dives or classes on the shore. As always, I felt like a couple of the dives could have been longer -- I usually came back with just under half a tank -- but the average dive time was one hour, which is quite good. Also, I was cold in between some of the dives so maybe it's as well that they weren't longer. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable, and some were from the Caribbean which I was very happy to see. They were initially a bit thrown by my adaptive diving style (which I sprung on them about half an hour before the first dive rather than giving them time to overthink it), but they let me dive and didn't have any concerns after the first dive, and they took my gear from me at the end of each dive before I came up the ladder. The dives were all within about a 5 minute boat ride of the launch (can't beat that!), on a boat with plenty of shade, and they come back between dives and sell coffee and a few food items. There are a couple of snackettes nearby (I had fried breadfruit from one - yum). Nature Island has a gift shop (which sells local books and chocolates as well as dive stuff) and a coral reef nursery, which was interesting to look at and ask questions about their setup and efforts. And they handled setting up, carrying, and washing all the gear, and they have two shower stalls and wifi. Truly full service.
Now for the diving: Dominica is known for both year-round sperm whales and seasonal humpback whales. I did not see any whales, but I heard humpback whale songs for large portions of three of the dives (L'Abym, Scotts Head Dropoff, and Condo). It was absolutely fabulous, with the sound echoing off the reef structure and sounding like it was coming from everywhere all at once. My recordings don't do it justice, but you can listen to a few snatches of whale sounds.
Most of the dive sites had walls, steep dropoffs, pinnacles, or other interesting macrostructures. There was some live coral cover, including some colorful corals, but what I noticed the most were tons of sponges, in all varieties of color, shape, and size. There were also more spaghetti worms than I've seen anywhere else, and quite a lot of worms in general. Aside from hearing whales, highlights included spending a long while watching two hawksbill turtles diving from Soufriere Pinnacles to L'Abym, a very well-hidden seahorse at Dangleben's, and a French grunt with a parasitic isopod below one eye at L'Abym. I saw crustaceans (spiny lobsters, shrimps, arrow crabs, and three channel clinging crabs) and eels (spotted moray, green moray, and/or garden eels) on every dive, and peacock flounder, porcupinefish (including one on another's back), and one or two lionfish on most of the dives. I also saw brittle stars (many of them nestled in a single sponge), crinoids, and some urchins. I spotted lettuce sea slugs and spotted drums on two sites each. Surprisingly, I didn't see any signs of octopus activity (though I did see reef squid at Condo), few soft corals (the occasional sea rod or seafan), and very few sharks or rays (one sleeping nurse shark at Coral Gardens Shallow).
Screenshots with profiles and notes.
I'm an adaptive diver and use small handfins instead of foot fins. I've done hundreds of dives this way, so it's hardly unusual to me, but when I use a dive operator I haven't used before, I'm almost always the first fin-less diver they've seen, and they are often reluctant. I'm still experimenting with the best way to tell the dive operator, but so far, booking the dives first and only mentioning it the day of the dive seems the best way to go. If I bring it up in advance, it becomes a big deal, and gives them time to worry and say no (or to make erroneous assumptions, or tell me that they can accommodate without ever actually telling the divemaster). If I wait until the day of the dive, they have far less time to doubt my abilities, and the divemaster and I can have a direct conversation about any concerns.
So that's what I did. At Nature Island two of the staff briefly consulted, and then I explained my abilities directly to the divemaster, and we had no problems. Also, their boat has possibly the most pleasant ladder I've ever encountered, with actual handholds on the boat once you get to the top of the ladder. It is also one of the only boats I've been on that used a short ramp (rather than a gap) to board from the dock (although there is a step up to get on the ramp, and there are no rails). Cabrits was completely unfazed about me not using fins (it may have helped that it was such a small group), and the assistant told me about someone who freedives without fins (wow!) and we discussed technique.
Life got in the way of my planning, so I ended up booking my trip about two weeks before travel, which meant a lot of hotels were booked. The dive shop has a convenient list of nearby accommodations, out of which I was able to find an airbnb (with air conditioning, even!). Despite looking at the last minute, there were still many very affordable airbnb's available around the island, and it was easy to book places with A/C in the other two villages I stayed in. If it had been available, I would have considered splurging and spending part of the trip at Jungle Bay. That said, I was very happy to save some money, stay with locals, and have kitchens. I spent between $50 and $100 per night (and the more expensive place had two bedrooms). So from what I've seen, Dominica is by far one of the better islands for budget travelers. If/when I go back, I expect to stay in airbnbs again. I'd also love to stay at the Chocolate Cottage, especially now that I know more about the family that built it.
I will note that I didn't spend much time looking for accessibility, figuring that I was unlikely to find anything on such a steep island. (Actually Secret Bay in Portsmouth looks to be very accessible, though I expect pricey.) That said, the places I stayed in Marigot and Portsmouth were nearly ground level (up a couple steps); the place in Scotts Head, however, involved a walk up a pretty steep narrow alley, which fortunately I've recovered enough to be able to do, but I did not attempt to bring my dive gear up to the apartment. It had a great view of sunsets over the water and was near a restaurant. The other places were quieter and more secluded (though one wasn't that far from multiple restaurants).
One inconvenient thing about diving on Dominica is that the airport is in Marigot, on the northeast end of the island, and I was diving off the southwest, at least an hour and a half drive away through the interior of the island. (In contrast, when I go to St Kitts, the airport, Basseterre, and Frigate Bay are all within ten minutes of each other, and even the drive to the Nevis end of the island for the swim race isn't all that far.) I rented a car from Yadah, which was located in the airport parking lot, a bit of a hike from the terminal. In hindsight, I should have arranged for them to pick me up at the airport. The car rental came out to $60/day, plus an additional $35 in other fees.
As an island formerly colonized by Britain, driving in Dominica is left-hand drive using cars with right-hand steering. My rental car had two extra features that I'd love to have be standard on cars in the Virgin Islands (and on other cars I rent): an extra fender mirror on the front of the car to see the edge of the road in front of the tire, and a button to pull in the side-view mirrors when parking. Brilliant!
Dominica has a reputation for having some pretty poor roads, in large part because of the terrain and regular flooding of the rivers, but the roads weren't nearly as bad as I'd feared. (Disclaimer: I visited during the drier half of the year and did not drive in any rain.) Actually, I'd say the roads I was on weren't any worse than the roads on St Thomas. Yes, they are hilly and curvy and don't have shoulders, but in general, I think they were a bit wider, had fewer potholes, and were certainly less-crowded than on St Thomas. There were several one-lane stretches due to active construction, but the road near the Kalinago territory was newly-paved and delightful. The part of driving I didn't enjoy wasn't the curvy hilly part, but driving in Roseau, which was annoyingly crowded, and I did a lot of circling looking for parking. Google Maps was reasonably accurate with one-way streets, which is more than I can say for e.g., Christiansted, St Croix. Also, that fender mirror was a godsend for parallel parking and backing into spots! I can definitely understand visitors not wanting to drive on Dominica (just as I can understand not wanting to drive on St Thomas), but I can't imagine having done this trip being dependent on taxis and buses. I think it would be possible for someone more mobile than me who wanted to mostly stay in one spot to dive or hike, but I like being able to explore and make multiple unexpected stops.
Despite growing a lot of produce (some of which is sold on St Thomas) and chocolate, Dominica is not a foodie destination. Easter weekend is not the easiest time to find things open. So a lot of my meals were really snacks based on what I found at the grocery stores. I did eat a bunch of fresh fruit, some of which was provided by one of my neighbors right off the tree! I ate out at the restaurant in the Kalinago Territory visitor area (not to be confused with the place nearby that has cassava bread), Lacou Melrose in an eighteenth century building in Roseau, Chez Wen near my airbnb in Scotts Head, Calabash Restaurant at Jungle Bay in Soufrière, Keepin' It Real on Toucari Beach (just north of Portsmouth), Unique Sea View in Calibishie (not far from the chocolate factory). Other places I never made it to included Teacher's Place in Soufriére (next to the church), Coral Reef Restaurant in Calibishie, and Bistro Bay in Marigot. Here's a facebook thread with several restaurant recommendations. There are a decent number of restaurants in/near Portsmouth, and if/when I go back, I'd expect to spend more time there rather than the less populated areas of Sourfrière and Scotts Head where I already spent most of my diving time.
Dominica (indigenous: Waitukubuli) is home to around 70,000 people, about 20% of whom live in the capital of Roseau. Dominica has the distinction of having been a holdout for the indigenous Kalinago, who were displaced from most of the other islands in the region by European settlers. Having been settled and claimed by both the French and English in alternation until becoming independent in 1978, Dominica has influences of both cultures, as is readily obvious by listening to the mix of English and Dominican (French-derived) Creole (Kwéyòl). And of course Dominica was influenced by indigenous and African cultures as well. Like much of the Caribbean, Dominica's economy is increasingly tourism-oriented, but Dominica also has a sizable agriculture industry, primarily bananas. Dominica has significant ties to the US Virgin Islands, where many Dominicans have migrated, and Dominica has been impacted by some of the same major hurricanes, most notably Hurricanes David (1979) and Maria (2017).
Before traveling, I did some research and put together my own Dominica map of places I might want to go, based largely on tripadvisor and Dominicapedia. (Yes, the island has its own wiki!)
Many people go to the Caribbean for beaches and to Dominica in particular to hike. While Dominica has some decent beaches, it's less of a beach destination than most of the Caribbean, and I'm spoiled by being from St Thomas. Besides, I figured I'd get enough ocean time by diving. Due to disability, I'm not a hiker (or even much of a hill-walker), which excluded quite a few of the main attractions (hikes, waterfalls, scenic views). I did stop at Dominica on a cruise in 2010 when I was fully mobile, and I saw Trafalgar Falls and Emerald Pool then. [Old photos.] If I were going to attempt one of the hikes, it would probably be Jacko Falls, because it is described as one of the easiest hikes (though I'm sure that's relative) and because it is named after Maroon Chief Jacko. Maybe one day. More likely, I'll ride the soon-to-be-completed cable car, which is an impressive engineering accomplishment. I know it won't be anything like the remoteness and solitude of hiking Dominica as it is now, but trails such as the Boiling Lake hike are considered challenging, even for experienced hikers, whereas it sounds like the cable car will be wheelchair accessible.
I only drove one route through the interior, but I managed to get around most of the perimeter with the exception of the southeast and the northwestern tip of the island.
My first full day I drove south from Marigot, where I had overnighted, to the Kalinago Territory, specifically the Barante Autê, which is their interpretation center and visitor area. As I've done a lot of reading about Amerindians in the Caribbean in the last couple of years, I was really psyched to visit the only officially recognized indigenous territory in the Caribbean, and I was not disappointed. The indoor exhibits were nicely done and informative (photos), and the local tour guide who led myself and a few other tourists was fabulous. He talked about the territory and Kalinago practices and answered my questions, while we walked up a hill to replicas of the different kinds of thatched huts and then down to a small waterfall. He also sang and danced to a short song that he composed and drew us in to join him. Afterwards I had lunch on site and bought some locally-made roucou (aka achiote or annatto) jewelry. Highly recommended for visitors to Dominica.
I then continued south along the East Coast Road to Castle Bruce before cutting across the interior of Dominica on Castle Bruce Road up to Emerald Pool, then to the Imperial Road and onward down to Canefield on the west coast. The roads were all in good condition, some even in very good condition, and it was gorgeous being up in the forested mountains. I'm not sure when those roads were built, but there weren't any significant interior roads until the 1950s, and it's impressive to think about the amount of engineering involved and how much connectivity through the interior must have changed Dominica, a place where the interior had previously been largely inaccessible, and where that inaccessibility had been used strategically by Kalinago and maroons for centuries.
I wasn't expecting to make any stops, but just before Canefield I came across a sign for Springfield House. I didn't recall reading about it and I couldn't tell if it was open, but why not? It turned out they weren't really open yet, but my impromptu stop led to a fascinating hour or so chatting with the guy who is in the process of renovating the house and restoring the plants. He is related to John Dana Archbold (who I had recently read about) who had purchased the property and operated a guest house and donated a portion of it to Clemson University for use as the Archbold Tropical Education and Research Center. The building houses some interesting old furniture, books, and scientific equipment, and there are a variety of plants on the property, and I saw sisserou parrots fly on the nearby hill. If you're in the area, stop by and say hi.
I also made a quick stop at the Old Mill Cultural Center in Canefield, where I saw the sugar mill remains and a small collection of artwork on display. By then it was too late in the day to see anything in Roseau, so I continued down the coast to my airbnb in Scotts Head.
I stayed in Scotts Head for 6 nights and dived from Soufrière for 5 days. I was done with dives and showered and changed by around 1:30PM each day, which left me most of the afternoon for sightseeing and/or chilling out in my airbnb. Two of these days I went to Roseau (see next section), and the others were lighter days. I hung around the dive shop and coral nursery, watched a few people on the beachfront in Soufrière, saw the outside of the small but distinctive Catholic Church of St Mark, and checked out Jungle Bay. I sat on the tombolo that connects Scott's Head peninsula (Cachacrou) with the rest of Dominica, from which you can look north to the coast of Dominica or south to glimpse Martinique on the horizon. I drove out to the overlook at the site of (former) Fort Cachacrou, where the French got the British drunk and launched a surprise invasion in 1778, and from which there is still a stunning view. And I enjoyed some stellar sunsets from my balcony.
I ended up spending a while in the capital and port town of Roseau, partly because I was trying to get to the bookstore and library during hours when they were open, and partly because it was hard to find parking. There's not a whole lot to see in Roseau as a tourist. I went to the Dominica/Roseau Museum, which I'd been to 15+ years ago. It provides a good overview to the history of Dominica, but it's not that large and doesn't seem to have changed much since I'd last been there. It's worth a stop if you're in Roseau, but I wouldn't recommend going into Roseau just to see it.
I was pleased to see the Neg Mawon statue (new since the last time I was in Dominica), which commemorates the maroons who resisted slavery by hiding in the mountainous interior of the island and planning attacks on the enslavers. I took pictures from the outside of the State House and House of Assembly, Our Lady of Fair Haven Cathedral and Roseau Chapel (somewhat damaged by Hurricane Maria), and a cannon outside of the Fort Young Hotel, which stands on the site of the previous Fort Young, and Lacou Melrose, which is in one of the oldest buildings in Roseau.
Another day, I slowly wandered through the Dominica Botanic Gardens [tripadvisor] looking at birds and trees, including a baobab tree felled by Hurricane David. Afterwards, I drove up to the nearby Morne Bruce viewpoint.
The main thing I wanted to see between Canefield and Portsmouth was a mural in the village of Massacre. To understand the significance of this mural, you first have to understand the history of the Warner family and the significance of the name of the town. Short version: seventeenth century St Kitts Governor Thomas Warner had multiple children raised in the same household, including a son with a Kalinago woman, Thomas, who later became a Kalinago chief and deputy governor of Dominica, and another son, Phillip, who became the governor of Antigua. Following ongoing conflicts between the Kalinago and the British settlers of Antigua, Phillip went to Dominica (nominally in peace), where half-brother Thomas and the Kalinago welcomed him with a diplomatic banquet. And then Phillip's troops massacred dozens of Kalinago including Thomas. (About 50 years earlier, there had been a larger Kalinago massacre on St Kitts; according to legend, the Europeans planned that massacre after Thomas's mother had warned his father and other Europeans of the impending arrival of the Kalinago. What a gruesome family history!)
The more well-visited attraction along that stretch of coast, however, is Mero Beach. It looked like a nice beach, and it was one of my only non-dive days, but it was also Easter Sunday and the beach was understandably crowded, so I merely drove through without stopping. I stopped along the shore a few times between Manhaut and St Joseph and later in Coulibistrie to look at the coast. I was surprised to later learn that the road along this route (now called the Edward Oliver Leblanc Highway) wasn't completed until around 1970 and that previous to this, travel between the towns of Roseau and Portsmouth was by boat. There wasn't much else to see along the rest of the drive to Portsmouth except a couple of churches and some mill remains, so I arrived at my airbnb well before sunset, and after a short break, I continued driving a bit further up the coast.
Portsmouth was very briefly the first capital of Dominica and is now its second-largest town and home to a medical school and a modest amount of tourism. I drove over the mouth of the Indian River, where boat tours are available, to Purple Turtle Beach on the coast of Prince Ruperts Bay, where I watched the tail end of the Sunday beachgoers finishing up for the day.
Next I went to the Cabrits National Park, where I trekked uphill to the restored eighteenth century Fort Shirley. In 1782, the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Saintes not far offshore from the fort. Among those who defended Fort Shirley were the Black men -- both free and enslaved -- who made up the British 8th West India Regiment. Acting on a set of grievances, they staged a rebellion in 1802, killing and imprisoning officers and holding Fort Shirley for three days. Although the revolt was suppressed and the rebels were hanged, the governor was also indicted, and a few years later all Black soldiers who had been recruited as slaves were freed.
After leaving Cabrits, I continued on to Douglas Bay Beach and ended the day with beachside sunset, dinner, and music on Toucari Bay, braving my way back to my airbnb in the dark.
This was a twisty drive east along the Melville Hall-Portsmouth road that eventually ended up following the north coast. There are some highly-rated beaches in this area, notably Batibou Bay and Number One Beach, but neither are easily accessible, so I didn't try to stop, and instead looked at the remains of the Hampstead Mill visible from the main road. I stopped at a scenic overlook above Calibishie and then near the Catholic Church in the center of the seaside town, where I walked along the small beach and selected from the handful of restaurants for lunch. Further along the drive I turned off the road to the secluded Woodford-Hill Beach, where I learned that there were recent Amerindian findings. After wandering around the beach, I continued the drive past some very red soil and through the airport expansion reconstruction area to my airbnb in Marigot.
But the highlight of the north coast drive was the Pointe Baptiste Chocolate Factory (yum!) in Calibishie. They grow all their own cacao and do their processing on site. I spent a long time there looking at their plants, sampling (and buying) chocolate, and touring their small factory and all the specialty equipment that goes into producing chocolate bars. In addition to having chocolate, it was just a great place to wander, and all the more special after I read Elma Napier's memoir. You can read about the chocolate factory here. And if that's not enough chocolate for you, there are at least two other chocolate producers on the island: KaKo Fwé in La Plaine, whose chocolate I purchased in Soufrière and Roseau, and Bois Cotlette which I didn't learn about until afterwards despite it being close to where I was staying in Scott's Head (so perhaps they are no longer open or are only open for cruise ship tours?). And if you can't make it to Pointe Baptiste, you can buy their chocolate online.
One of the things I've been doing on my Caribbean trips is visiting libraries and bookstores. This meant braving downtown Roseau traffic and parking (which I wouldn't recommend unless you have quite a bit of time to spare). The main branch of the public library is around the corner from Jay's Limited, and the Documentation Centre is about a block further down Kennedy Ave; there are smaller branches in Portsmouth and Marigot. Unfortunately, neither location in Roseau had a local/Caribbean section available for browsing (though they do have an online catalog). I had better luck at Jay's Limited, which had a good selection of Dominican (and other Caribbean) authors. Then I discovered that both Nature Island Dive and the airport gift shop sold Dominica books, and both of them are more conveniently located.
Dominica seems possibly underrepresented in the literary department, and the most well-known books were written by people with strong ties to Great Britain, e,g., Jean Rhys, whose Bronte-esque Wide Sargasso Sea was the only Dominica-related book I had previously read. As part of my trip, I read several books during (or right before or after) my time on Dominica:
As a language nerd, I couldn't resist buying two language books: Beginner's Guide to the Kalinago Language, which is a short illustrated children's book introducing a few dozen common words and phrases, and the definitive Dominican Creole (Kwéyòl)-English dictionary Dominica's Diksyonnè. I also browsed two of Honychurch's classics: The Dominica Story: A History of the Island and Dominica: Isle of Adventure and looked at several other books.
And finally, here are my photos:
(Sara Smollett, 2026)
