To be from “Town” means you live in or around Port of Spain. Since the city itself is congested, commercial and undergoing a spell of construction and renovation, being from Town mostly means you live somewhere just outside the city.

Port of Spain has something few other areas in Trinidad can boast of: it seems to have been planned. The main streets are laid out in an easily navigable grid that can take you from the City Gate transport hub on the southern edge right up to the Queen’s Park Savannah in the north. While City Gate can be loud, hot and jostling, take a minute to look at the shell of the original train station – you won’t see anything else like it on the island.

Frederick Street, the main shopping strip in Port of Spain, will yield everything from designer wear and jewellery to kitsch handicraft and incense-selling Rastafarians. Two streets to the east is Charlotte Street, the bargain capital.

Do walk, if only because it’s almost impossible to park. In between the new glass and steel flagships of the economy, there are still small buildings with delicate lattice work and intricate cast iron patterns. The cathedrals and the seat of parliament are still much as they were built.

Mostly though, Port of Spain is a story. People who live in Town joke that anything east of the lighthouse (just beyond City Gate) is “country” and of little importance. Of course it’s a joke: the oil industry lies in the south and the sugar belt is in central Trinidad. Still, much of the island’s history can be heard on a walk through the capital and its neighbourhoods.

Port of Spain replaced St. Joseph as the capital in 1757. Woodford Square, the soapbox of everyone from the country’s first prime minister, Eric Williams, to today’s homeless, is still a space in which worlds and words can cross. On the eastern flanks of the city, Laventille birthed the steel pan; Belmont pushed some of the earliest and finest Carnival costumes and bands towards the Savannah and the city streets.

In the west is St. James, a mini-city with a big reputation. The insomniac Western Main Road, which runs through its centre, is lined with gritty bars and street food. Streets are named for Indian states and cities, as the indentured Indian cane workers from nearby plantations in Ellersie and Diego Martin made new homes and careers when sugar was dethroned. Every major ethnic, religious and secular holiday is paraded here. Every cuisine is on offer. If Port of Spain is the nation’s story, St. James is the summary.

A world away, but no more than twenty minutes if the traffic is light, Chaguaramas is the western extreme of the island. This is where the boats are. Sail boats, yachts, speed-boats, cats. They stop to visit the island, to shelter during the hurricane season (Chaguaramas offers the safest harbour in this part of the world), to dry-dock for repairs. If you’ve come to the islands and feel you haven’t seen the sails and piers you saw on the brochure, it’s no fault of Chaguaramas. One winding road along the coast takes you past marinas, night clubs and restaurants. Inland, Tucker Valley provides lush forest, picturesque but low-effort hiking, and the chance to encounter some of the richest natural treats in Trinidad.

Round off your tour by heading north from the Savannah, through Maraval towards the North Coast Road and the ever-popular Maracas Bay. It’s a green drive largely shaded by bamboo and forested hillside. You won’t just slow down for the curves and scenery. You’re slowing down; you’re out of Town.