See more pictures - Here
Nevis map
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Emergencies
Police – 911
Fire – 469 5391
Hospital - 469 5473 |
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Flights/Getting There
There are no direct flights to Nevis from outside the Caribbean, so you will have to make a connection. Of course the island’s relative inaccessibility is one of the reasons that it retains its charm, but the connection is sometimes unreliable because of tight timings. This is particularly true in winter when the time zones work against you. International flights tend to arrive in the mid afternoon and the onward leg leaves soon afterwards. It can be a tense turnaround, particularly if there is any delay on the international leg, so be prepared to abandon your luggage (it is best to check it through anyway). Make sure to carry a change of clothes and your swimming costume in your hand luggage.
Inter-island hopper flights are scheduled to meet the international flights. Local numbers include Winair, t 469 5302 and LIAT t 469 5238.
The best connections from the UK are probably made in Antigua (it has the largest number of flights each week) with onward flights on LIAT but if you are travelling from the European mainland you can also consider flying via St Maarten from where there are also links. From North America all these options still apply, but there is the additional possibility of transiting in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Airlines serving the islands near Nevis include:
St Kitts
British Airways weekly flights on Saturdays from Gatwick with a second service due to commence on 30 March 2010. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines from North America. The seven minute onward flight transfer is no longer available and all travel over to Nevis is now by water-taxi or ferry. The inter-island ferries between St Kitts and Nevis are fun to travel at leisure, but they are not really a practical means of reaching your hotel or catching an outbound international flight. The journey takes approximately 45 minutes. Most of the hotels now offer a semi-private or private water-taxi transfer service for guests flying into St Kitts. The Four Seasons Hotel however, does have its own ferry from St Kitts to Nevis which is reserved exclusively for guests of the hotel.
Antigua
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic from the UK, plus a number of charter airlines. Lufthansa from Germany. From the United States, American Airlines, Air Jamaica, Continental Airways and US Airways, from Canada, Air Canada and charter airlines.
There are connections to Nevis (25 minutes) several times a day on LIAT.
St Maarten
Served by Air Francefrom France and KLM from Amsterdam. From North America, American Airlines, Continental, Delta, US Airways, United Airlines, Jetblue Airways and Air Canada from Canada plus a number of charter airlines from all these countries. There are no flights from the UK at present.
Inter-island links are available a couple of times a day on LIAT and Winair. Timings are likely to be even tighter than on the Antigua route if you are trying to get there the same day.
San Juan
American Airlines, Continental, Delta, United Airlines, US Airways and Air Canada fly into San Juan.
There are a couple of connections each day from San Juan to Nevis (about an hour’s flight), on American Eagle – suspended until November 2009.
STOP PRESS: Carib Aviation ceased all operations on 12 September 2008. |
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Flora & Gardens
Nevis is immensely fertile and so if you are not acquainted with tropical flora you will be stunned by the greenery. It is also well worth pursuing if you do recognise the plants, because there is so often an interesting story behind the plants, many of which were brought from outside the island in the late 1700s. Hotel gardens are particularly good on Nevis and so it is definitely worth talking to the gardener.
For a horticultural enthusiast it is worth noting a couple of notable gardeners in Nevis, who open their gardens for private viewings when they are on island. Ann Knudsen is listed as having the largest private collection of palms in the world, William Glover has over 750 types of cacti, agaves, aloes and euphorbias and Roger Staiger has a excellent collection of bromeliads. Their gardens are also opened for charity from time to time.
Another excellent way to be introduced to the flora of the island is to go on one of the hikes that visit Jessup's Rainforest (see Hiking). The guides are very knowledgeable and will bring this fascinating aspect of the island alive in incredibly colourful detail. Try Top to Bottom, t 469 9080.
The Botanical Garden of Nevis, t 469 3509, is worth a visit (closed mid-August to mid-October annually). It is set in seven extremely lush acres of tropical and sub-tropical plants from around the world, which you approach through an alley of royal palms. There is a number of collections including palms - Bismarck Palms, golden palms, sago palms and sealing wax or lipstick palms - an orchid terrace, hundreds of extraordinarily intricate and beautiful orchids, and an area devoted to cacti, century plants and other succulents. There is also a vine arbour, where creeping plants are trained around trellises - the jade vine is spectacular. The centrepiece is the rainforest conservatory, which is overflowing with ferns and other forest plants, creeping around the rocks and waterways. Among them you will find a strange Mayan-looking sculpture that strikes an odd note of theme park among the otherwise excellent flora.
In the gardens there is also a very attractive looking Creole house with a wraparound veranda where you will find the restaurant and a gift shop. |
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Food & Cooking
Food on Nevis has the traditional divide that you find in so many islands around the Caribbean. In the restaurants and the hotels the food is fairly ‘international’, intended largely to appeal to visitors to the island. Some of it is at a generally high standard. Outside the hotels you will also find some solidly West Indian restaurants, which can be interesting to try out. For details of places to eat out on Nevis, including the romantic plantation house hotels, please see our section on Restaurants below.
If you are staying in a villa then you can ask the cook to show you how to cook West Indian food. Currently no cookery courses are available on island.
The Fruits of Nevis, by Jim Johnson, a resident biologist. |
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Golf
There is an excellent 18 hole golf course, 6766 yard, par 71, built by Robert Trent Jones II, at the Four Seasons Hotel on the west of the island. Green fee US$175 ($110 for nine holes). Preferential tee times are given to hotel guests, particularly during the busiest parts of the season of course, but it is possible for outsiders to play (and some of the wealthy guests from St Barts and Anguilla are prepared to come all the way from those islands to do so), t 469 1111.
If you just want to practise your swing rather than play a whole round of golf, then there is a nine-hole par 3 pitch and putt course in Newcastle. Contact Cat Ghaut Pitch n Putt, t 469 9826.
There is also a good course in St Kitts, the Royal St Kitts Golf Club, t 466 2700. It is a 7248 yard, par 72 course set on the ocean, which brings some strong cross-winds, in Frigate Bay. St Kitts is an hour’s trip by ferry or ten minutes by plane. Other courses are currently under construction on St Kitts.
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Health & Fitness
Nevis has a handful of gyms and they will allow a day or week's membership if you are visiting.
FIT Wellness Centre, Stony Grove, t 469 3481, www.fitwellnesscenter.com
The island's newest gym, with a good range of equipment and therapists and trainers on hand. Juice bar.
Bull’s Gym, Old Manor Estates, t 469 2039
Full equipment with weights training
Champions Fitness Centre, Charlestown |
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Hiking
Hiking is one of the real pleasures of Nevis. The island may be small, but its wonderful history and ample forest makes it a fantastic place to explore. There are a number of guides that offer excellent tours that will introduce it all to you. Some tours go into the rainforest, but others specialise in ruins in plantation history, others star-gazing. Most of these guides also offer the opportunity to watch hawksbill turtles laying their eggs on the beach at night in season (June to October).
Top to Bottom, t 469 9080, www.walknevis.com
Jim Johnson is a qualified biologist from the States who offers excellent hikes into a number of different environments and remote parts of the island, including Jessup's Rainforest, the summit of Nevis Peak, the ghauts or ravines that run down its flanks and old hidden plantations. He will explain the extraordinary flora, with stories of poisonous plants and medicinal uses. And he also offers a star-gazing evening with basic astronomy and full of West Indian lore.
Read more about Jim’s hikes and extracts from Jim's monthly newsletter 'TABA' about the Caribbean flora and fauna on Nevis
Sunrise Tours, t 469 2758
Earl Liburd is a teacher from Nevis and leads walking tours to the rainforest and other areas of the island. |
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History/Population/Politics
Nevis had a fairly typical early history for the Eastern Caribbean. Known as Oualie by the indigenous Amerindians, the island was sighted by Columbus on his second voyage to the area and he christened it ‘Nuestra Senora de las Nieves, which has been shortened to Nevis. The island was largely ignored by the Spaniards, but as other European settlers arrived it was settled by the English (as they were know then) in the 1620s from St Kitts next door.
During the sugar era in the 1700s Nevis was known for its extremely fertile soil and hence the quality of its sugar. On the back of slave labour it became an extremely wealthy island, and the planters built themselves the large and grand houses, the result of which is the rich history that the island has today. At one stage Nevis apparently needed a fleet of 20 ocean going ships to supply it with all it needed and to ship back all its sugar.
Nevis is known for two famous residents, both of whom have a museum dedicated to them. Alexander Hamilton (1757 – 1804) was born in the island, in a house in Charlestown, and finished up as the first secretary to the US Treasury. The other famous figure to live in the island in the 1780s is Admiral Horatio Nelson. His job was to uphold the British Navigation Laws, which prevented island ships from trading with any countries other than Britain (before American independence they had good trade with the American colonies of course) so he was unpopular. He did find solace however, with Fanny Nisbet, whom he married on the island in 1787, on the Montpelier Estate.
The nineteenth century was a time of decline for the island and it was joined to St Kitts in 1884. The decline continued into the late twentieth century, when the economy began to pick up, mainly through tourism. The islands took independence from the United Kingdom in September 1982.
Population
Today the population of Nevis is just over 11,000, which has grown in the past few years as the tourism industry develops. The Nevisians themselves are descended largely from the slaves that worked the plantations in the island’s sugar industry. Over the years many left the island, for St Kitts and further afield. All Nevisians have relatives in St Kitts.
Politics
Nevis is an independent island in political federation with St Kitts. There is an eleven seat national Parliament in Basseterre, to which Nevis sends three representatives, which oversees laws for both islands. Nevis also has its own Assembly, which consists of five members. They meet just four times a year (upstairs in Alexander Hamilton House in Charlestown). |
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Horse Riding
Just as there is excellent walking on Nevis, so there is good horse-riding in a couple of locations, down in the beach area in the northwest of the island and up in the lush interior. Rides are available for all standards. Horse racing is also popular with the Nevisians.
The Hermitage Plantation, t 469 3477, nevherm@caribsurf.com
Rides along trails and through the villages of Gingerland, through the forest on the slopes of Mount Nevis and down to Saddle Hill, an old naval lookout with a fort in the southeast of the island.
The Hermitage also offers horse-drawn carriage rides, a 3 mile ride through the local area of Gingerland, a charming area of local houses and villlages. The carriages, made of mahogany, are reproductions of traditional West Indian ‘Victoria’ carriages that were used in the mid 19th century.
The Nevis Equestrian Centre, Cades Bay, t 469-8118 or 662-8693, nevisequestrian@caribcable.com, www.ridenevis.com
Rides of all standards, heading in both directions from their base at Cades Bay north of Pinney’s Beach, down onto the beach itself and up into the pasture and forested land on the slopes of Nevis mountain. |
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Island Hopping
Despite its small size, it is easy to be so charmed by Nevis that you can find no reason to leave, however there are other islands nearby which can make a good change of scene.
The obvious place to visit from Nevis is St Kitts, which is just ten minutes by air or about an hour by ferry. St Kitts is very different in atmosphere but it has plenty to recommend it for a short visit and it also has a couple of delightful small plantation hotels that make for a lovely longer stay - Rawlins Plantation Inn is in the best tradition of St Kitts and Nevis’s plantation hotels.
Nevis also makes a lovely foil to one of the more sophisticated islands in the area, a moment of charm and calm after the social whirl of say Anguilla or St Barths. Anguilla has a string of excellent restaurants on excellent beaches and an extremely low-key atmosphere, so laid back that it’s nearly asleep. St Barths also has excellent restaurants and excellent beaches, but it has a completely different feel. It is like a chic outpost of France in the Caribbean.
Airlines that make inter-island flights from Nevis include LIAT and Winair (out of Dutch St Maarten). Carib Aviation also offers charters and ‘share-charters’ around the area. If you decide to charter into St Barths you will need a company that has landing rights into the island. Try St Barth Commuter.
STOP PRESS: Carib Aviation ceased all operations on 12 September 2008 including scheduled services operated on behalf of LIAT.
For day sails to St Kitts, check Day Sails.
| | St Barth CommuterA local airline based in St Barths, which offers scheduled flights from there to St Martin/St Maarten and Caribbean private aircraft charters to islands all over the Eastern Caribbean. They have a fleet of five twin-engine planes and five specially trained (STOL) pilots with permission to land in St Barths. | | SVG AirA local Caribbean airline that offers charters to the Grenadines from around the region, often from Barbados, but also from St Lucia and Grenada, even from as far as Puerto Rico. SVG Air has around a dozen 5-19-seater planes and also offers island hopping and air ambulance services. |
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Local Organisers
We are currently unable to recommend any particular local organiser in Nevis although if you are looking for help with your travel arrangements, TDC are the handling agents for LIAT, and they have a travel agency in Charlestown. If you are staying at any of the hotels on Nevis, you will find that the hoteliers and their staff will be happy to assist you with anything you need just as well as any tour organiser. The same applies if you book a villa through Hart of Nevis.
| | Kantours Vacation & Tour ConsultantsKantours is a full service destination management company in St Kitts and Nevis, with services that include ground handing, airport transfers, a concierge service, wedding co-ordination, conference and incentive travel and cruise ship excursions. Located in Basseterre, it also operates a fully licensed IATA Travel Agency. Recently Kantours was appointed the Official Travel Agent in St Kitts and Nevis for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007. |
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Local Transport
Local buses (actually private minibuses) work the circular island road, running both ways out of Charlestown. Buses headed along Pinney’s Beach and north start in Dr Walwyn Plaza and buses headed east leave from West Memorial Square. There is no schedule. Instead they leave when they are full or at the whim of the driver. Fares range from EC$1-4, depending how far you are going. To get off you shout ‘Driver, Stop!’ and to hail them from the side of the road you point rapidly and repeatedly at the ground. Bus drivers will pick up anywhere along the route. If you are heading for a destination off the main road then the driver will often take you right to your door.
See here for article by Jim Johnson, 'Back to Buses'. |
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Medical
Nevis’s hospital is the Alexandria Hospital on the outskirts of Charlestown.
No vaccinations are necessary for visiting Nevis. |
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Music
Nevis has a number of local bands and as a guest in the hotels you will hear them play from time to time over dinner or for a party. Some bands play international music, but you may well also hear local scratch bands. These have many stringed instruments (they are also called ‘string bands’), and then sometimes some drums or a boom box. The bass is also played with either a bamboo or plastic pipe and the tune is sometimes called by a flute. Scratch bands can have as many as ten players. |
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Nature
There are not many large wild animals on land on Nevis. You may see a mongoose skittering across the road, but the largest animal in the wild is the vervet monkey, which lives in family troupes up in the forest but comes down into the lower country. They are regarded as a something of a pest by farmers as they nick their crops, but they are fun to watch because of their cheeky white faces. A good place to find them is around tea time (between 4-6 pm) on the Nature Trail from Golden Rock.
One of the best ways to experience the fauna of the island is through the guided hikes (hiking). The guides are immensely knowledgeable about the plant life and history of the island, but they will also tell you about the animals (which includes extraordinary insect life for instance, not just mammals). Please see below for articles about Caribbean flora and fauna on Nevis by Jim Johnson, www.walknevis.com.
With so many different habitats in such a small area there are many species of birds on Nevis, 149 in all, many of which are migratory. These include herons and cattle egrets, which stand vigil near or on cattle waiting for an insect to be exposed, some hawks and many coastal birds, including sandpipers that twitter along near the waves. Offshore you will see tropicbirds, and pelicans sitting on a rock, perhaps digesting a meal, and, soaring overhead, the arrow-shaped figure of the frigate bird. (See here for a listing of Birds, reptiles and mammals spotted on Nevis)
Four species of turtle come to nest on Nevis and during the main season between June and October it is possible to see them laying through the hiking guides and with the Fisheries Officer and volunteers, t 469 5521. If you are lucky you will find that you get the opportunity to swim with turtles on the day sailing trips.
A series of articles about Caribbean flora and fauna on Nevis by Jim Johnson including:
Counting Creatures - How many different creatures are there on Nevis?
Sulphur Searches - Sulphur butterflies on Nevis
Natural Spread - the rich variety of species found on Nevis
Whale Tales! - a whale of a time on Nevis
Confusing Crabs - Setting the record straight!
Stoney Shores - definitely worth a visit
Talking Tiny - Take some time to appreciate the wonders of Nevis, but look closely to see it all!
Looking at Leaves - A leaf is not just a leaf!
Land of the Living - Nevis is quiet and relaxed but packed full of life... check it out! |
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