Things to do in Anguilla
And where to stay, the best time to visit, what a day costs, and the traps to skip.
Best time to visit Anguilla
• a note or something on ✦ an occasion worth the trip
High season: dry, calm seas, best snorkelling and diving visibility, everything open and prices at their highest.
The shoulder sweet spot: prices drop, the sea stays calm, beaches empty and most good restaurants stay open.
Summer Festival and the liveliest local season, hotter and more humid with a small hurricane risk.
Peak hurricane season: most large resorts and many top restaurants close completely. Avoid for a first trip.
Reopening shoulder: properties reopen in stages, rates below high season and lobster returns to menus.
What's on
- Moonsplash Early to mid March each year
Bankie Banx's reggae festival at the Dune Preserve on Rendezvous Bay, billed as the Caribbean's most intimate.
- Festival Del Mar Easter weekend
Seafood festival in Island Harbour with food stalls, boat racing, fishing competitions and live music.
- Anguilla Regatta May
Sailing regatta in the full May to June calendar of races and local events.
- Anguilla Day 30 May
National holiday marking the 1967 Revolution, centred on the Premier's Cup around the island boat race.
- Anguilla Summer Festival Usually mid July to early August, peaking around August Monday
Carnival season peaking around August Monday with J'ouvert, Parade of Troupes, Poker Run and boat racing.
Best things to do in Anguilla
Shoal Bay East
Two miles of pink tinged white sand with calm shallow water, reef snorkelling and beach restaurants for an easy full day.
Meads Bay
A mile of soft sand with the easiest swimming, sunset views and the densest cluster of great restaurants on one bay.
Little Bay
A tiny cliff backed cove and marine park with turtles and reef fish, reached by boat, kayak or a fixed rope descent.
Rendezvous Bay
A big calm southern crescent with views to St Martin, good shelter on windy north shore days and room to walk.
Dune Preserve
Bankie Banx's driftwood beach bar and music venue on the dune, home of Moonsplash and the island's cultural living room.
Sandy Ground
The harbour village for racing sloops, yachts, beach bars and the island's only real nightlife, best from late afternoon.
Island Harbour
The principal fishing village: pretty boats, local sailing, seafood restaurants and the small boat over to Scilly Cay.
Scilly Cay
A tiny coral islet for a grilled crayfish and lobster lunch, famous but price opaque, so check prices before ordering.
Where to stay in Anguilla
Meads Bay
first trip, all-round base
The best swimming beach plus the best restaurant cluster, walkable to dinner, at the island's highest prices.
Shoal Bay East
beach purists, snorkellers and families
Arguably better sand and sea than Meads, casual eating on the beach and slightly cheaper at every tier.
Rendezvous Bay
golfers, repeat visitors, quiet luxury
One great calm beach, Aurora golf, the Dune Preserve and Sunshine Shack, in a spread out residential setting.
Sandy Ground
younger travellers, sailors, divers and budgets
Guesthouses behind Road Bay, walkable to the nightlife and beach bars, but the harbour beach is not for swimming days.
Island Harbour
self-catering, repeat visitors, least touristy base
Fishing village life with Hibernia and Scilly Cay nearby, sunrise side, entirely car dependent and far from Meads.
West End villas
multi-generational groups and bachelor or bachelorette parties
World class staffed villas with pools between Barnes Bay and Maundays Bay, with minimum stays and car dependence.
Think twice about
- The Valley as a tourist base
Not unsafe, but hot, inland and beachless, so a stay here means driving to absolutely everything including water.
- Captain's Bay and far northeast villas for swimmers
Spectacular and isolated, but the Atlantic side has a dangerous undertow, no facilities and rough access roads.
- Any isolated villa without a rental car
Taxis are expensive and there is no walkable resort strip outside Meads and Sandy Ground, so isolation shrinks the trip.
- Sandy Ground for light sleepers in festival and race weeks
The bars are the point here and they are loud until late on music nights.
Best restaurants in Anguilla
Blanchard's
The island legend since the 1990s: refined Caribbean global cooking in a plantation style room steps from the sand.
Jacala
Alain Laurent's intimate French beachfront restaurant, known for crayfish, lobster risotto and a lobster club sandwich.
Veya
Carrie Bogar's cuisine of the sun in a treehouse style room above Sandy Ground, the creative dinner on the island.
Straw Hat
Beachfront breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days, famous for a spicy mahi sandwich and free chairs for patrons.
Sharky's
A locals favourite roadside dinner near Meads Bay serving five star level food at a fraction of flagship prices.
Tasty's
Dale Carty's institution for Anguillian cooking itself: conch ceviche, saltfish and Johnny cakes, open off season.
Hibernia
The east end destination dinner: eccentric Franco Asian cooking in a stone house with an art gallery.
Blanchard's Beach Shack
The famous name's barefoot sibling on Meads Bay: salads, tacos, grilled fish and ice cream at beach lunch prices.
Outdoor things to do in Anguilla
Tradition Sailing Charters
A historic 1978 trading sloop sailing to Prickly Pear for reef snorkelling, a lobster beach barbecue and a sail home.
Prickly Pear Cays
Uninhabited cays in the marine park with reef snorkelling, a castaway beach and seabird nesting grounds.
Gotcha! Garfield's Sea Tours
Small local boats combining Prickly Pear, Little Bay and Sandy Island, a cheaper way to do the cay day.
Chocolat
A smaller local boat running Prickly Pear, Little Bay and Sandy Island trips in various formats.
Sandy Island
A postcard sand spit off Sandy Ground with shallow turquoise water, one beach grill, hammocks and snorkelling.
Scuba Shack
The island's only PADI five star centre, diving reef sites and wrecks including the galleon El Buen Consejo.
Vigilant Divers
A small group dive boat carrying a maximum of four divers, the personal alternative for certified divers.
Aurora Anguilla
The island's only golf: a Greg Norman 18 hole championship course plus a 9 hole short course with sea views.
Best hotels in Anguilla
Belmond Cap Juluca
The romantic flagship: white Moorish style villas along a beautiful crescent, every room effectively beachfront.
Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla
The facilities flagship straddling two bays, with multiple pools, a spa, kids programme and residences for groups.
Malliouhana
Anguilla's original luxury resort from 1984, clifftop above Meads and Turtle Cove, smaller and full of character.
Zemi Beach House
Boutique luxury on the best beach, with a Thai house spa, a serious Rhum Room and Shoal Bay as its front garden.
Quintessence
A nine suite Relais and Chateaux mansion hotel for travellers who want staff who know their names by dinner.
Frangipani Beach Resort
A small family run feeling beachfront hotel on Meads Bay, home to Straw Hat, with tennis, watersports and a boat.
Carimar Beach Club
Beachfront condo suites with full kitchens on Meads Bay, loved by repeat families who self cater and save for dinners.
Turtle's Nest Beach Resort
Spacious condo units on Meads Bay sand, the solid mid priced base for couples and small families.
Is Anguilla expensive? What a day costs
| Budget | $140 a person |
|---|---|
| Classic | $422 a person |
| Splurge | $1,200 a person |
A day of food, drink, sights and getting around, before the room
What to book ahead
- Scilly Cay: a few days ahead
- Tradition Sailing Charters: a few days ahead
- Aurora Anguilla: a few days ahead
- Liquid Glow: a few days ahead
- Seaside Stables: a few days ahead
- Anguilla National Trust: a few days ahead
- Fountain Cavern: a few days ahead
- Blanchard's: weeks ahead
- In December to April, Blanchard's, Jacala and Veya need booking one to three weeks ahead for prime times.
- Tradition Sailing sells out in high season: book days to weeks ahead, and book Scilly Cay lunch on its few open days.
- Restaurants close one or two set days a week: plan the week's dinners by open days, not appetite.
Is Anguilla safe?
- Lock villas and cars and do not leave valuables visible on the sand: opportunistic theft is the main reported crime.
- Take care on unlit roads at night and never drive back from dinner after the rum punch flight.
- Serious medical cases transfer to St Maarten or Puerto Rico: get travel insurance with medical evacuation cover.
Anguilla travel tips: tourist traps to skip
- Scilly Cay has no printed prices: check the day's prices before you order or the bill decides the opinion.
- Captain's Bay has a powerful undertow: look and walk, do not swim.
- Every beach is public: a rental car, a cooler and a beach restaurant lunch buys the same sand as a resort day.
- Lobster and crayfish have closed and scarce periods: confirm availability close to travel, especially in late spring.
Getting around Anguilla: public transport and more
- Rent a car: about 40 to 50 dollars a day plus a temporary Anguilla driving permit for about 25 dollars, and driving is on the left.
- Taxis are unmetered and priced by zone: agree the fare before you get in and use them as an evening supplement.
- Most visitors fly to St Maarten, then take a boat shuttle or the public ferry from Marigot to Blowing Point. Passport required.
Who Anguilla suits
| Solo travellers | OK |
|---|---|
| Groups of friends | Great |
| Couples | Great |
| Bachelor parties | Good |
| Families | Good |
| Bachelorette parties | Good |
Make Anguilla your trip
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