Around Crown Point
- Store Bay: Two minutes from the airport and one of Tobago’s most popular beaches. Clear, calm water makes for good swimming and snorkelling. A busy, shadeless beach with fine craft stalls and local food kiosks. Excellent facilities. Lifeguard on duty.
- Pigeon Point: Tobago’s picture postcard white-sand beach. Access along a beautiful coconut palm driveway. Sheltered by Buccoo Reef, the water is calm and shallow. Stay within the red markers of the boat channel. Excellent facilities, craft stores and watersports. Entrance fee: TT$20. Lifeguard on duty.
- Canoe Bay: Water very calm and shallow a long way out. A good family beach with cabanas, but beware of mosquitoes in the evening. Excellent facilities and bar. Guestrooms available. Open 9am–5pm. There is a small admission fee.
Buccoo to Plymouth
- Buccoo Beach: Long, coarse coral-sand beach. Avoid secluded areas. Site for Sunday School and Easter Goat Race Festival. Facilities and craft shops nearby.
- Grange Bay: Beautiful long, thin beach, obscured from the road by a stone wall. Deep water close in makes this a good swimmer’s beach which attracts locals and visitors. Turtles and iguanas nest here. No facilities.
- Mount Irvine: The hotel beach is open to the public, with food and facilities. Mount Irvine Bay is a short walk away, popular for watersports; it attracts a young crowd. Craft and food stalls on site. A fish market operates Monday–Friday, 4–5pm. Lifeguard on duty. Beware of the manchineel trees—don’t shelter under them if it rains (they produce a poisonous milky latex which irritates eyes and skin).
- Back Bay: Picturesque white-sand beach, good for swimming. It’s very isolated, so travel with company.
- Stonehaven Bay: A lovely long grey-sand beach with good snorkelling and swimming. Facilities at the Grafton Beach hotel end only. Popular with walkers and joggers. Turtle nesting, seine fishing.
- Turtle Beach (Great Courland Bay): A grey-sand beach, good for swimming. Stay near the Rex Turtle Beach Hotel, as other areas are very secluded. Kayaks and hobbycats available for rent. Turtle nesting, horseback riding.
The Leeward Coast
- Arnos Vale Bay: Tobago’s best snorkelling beach. The reef lies immediately off the sand. The beach is within a hotel compound, and birds such as hummingbirds and parrots are fed at breakfast time.
- Culloden Bay: A small, narrow beach, not recommended for swimming but good for snorkelling. Footprints Eco Resort offers birding trails as well as a bar and facilities.
- King Peter’s Bay: Named after the last king of the Tobago Amerindians, this is a remote dark-sand beach. Take a guide.
- Castara Bay: A lovely beach nestled against the tourist-friendly fishing village of Castara. Excellent facilities, stores and stalls; see bread made in traditional dirt ovens. Waterfall nearby. A smaller beach to the north is accessed via a steep driveway. Seine fishing.
- Parlatuvier Bay: White/pink-sand beach with facilities, offering good snorkelling and a chance to see magnificent frigatebirds. A fish market operates here. Seine fishing.
- Bloody Bay: Notice-boards at the beach detail this area’s fierce history. Now it’s a quiet, grey-sand beach with newly constructed facilities and amenities.
- Man o’ War Bay: A natural harbour, deep enough to accommodate cruise ships, around the picturesque fishing village of Charlotteville. The busy beach backs straight onto the village’s food and craft stalls. Seine fishing. Lifeguard on duty.
- Pirate’s Bay: A dirt road, half a mile long, at the end of Charlotteville leads you to a 144-step descent and Pirate’s Bay. The beautiful, pink-sand beach with calm water offers good swimming and snorkelling. No facilities.
- Cotton Bay: Beautiful, private and secluded beach, accessible from the sea only. It is favourite boat tour stop.
- Englishman’s Bay: Voted one of the Caribbean’s finest beaches, this almond tree-fringed bay exudes a beguiling tranquillity. The deep clear water is good for swimming and snorkelling. Good facilities, with a bar, food and craft stalls
The Windward Coast
- Little Rockly Bay: Lined with coconut trees, and favoured by windsurfers for its northeast trade winds. Also popular with joggers and walkers. Lifeguard on duty.
- Bacolet Bay: Black-sand beach popular with surfers. Occasional choppy conditions with currents further out.
- Granby Point: Windswept, dark-sand beach overlooked by an old fort.
- Bellevue Bay (Belle Garden): Sheltered dark, coarse-sand beach offering calm water conditions. Seine fishing. Lifeguard on duty.
- Roxborough Bay: A long beach adjoining the village, mostly used by locals. Conditions are often rough, and swimming is not recommended. No facilities.
- King’s Bay: Long, coarse, sheltered dark-sand beach with calm water and good swimming. Beach facilities, seine fishing. Lifeguard on duty.
- Speyside: Tobago’s diving mecca also offers good snorkelling and glassbottom boat trips to Angel Reef, Goat Island and Little Tobago. Beachgoers can use the meticulously maintained toilets at Jemma’s Treehouse Kitchen.
- Blue Waters Beach: Walk through Blue Waters Inn to access the beach. Good snorkelling and facilities. Glassbottom boat tours leave from the pier.
Written by Discover Trinidad & Tobago