Barbados Family Holidays

Barbados Beaches and Watersports

Choose between the southern and western coasts with some of Barbados' best beaches and calm waters, and the eastern, more rugged Atlantic coast, which is popular with surfers, especially Bathsheba, where you can also soak in tide-pools.

Folkestone Marine Park & Museum

Snorkel at Folkestone Marine Park & Museum. The artificial reef here, created by the sinking of the Stavronikita after it was destroyed by fire, is open to experienced divers only, but there’s a recreational zone with an inshore reef where snorkellers can admire sea anemones, sea lilies, corals, sponges and more, plus a visitor centre with an aquarium, playground, basketball court, snack bar and picnic benches.

Animal Flower Cave

Swim in Animal Flower Cave at the island’s northernmost point, named for the ‘animal flowers’ (sea anemones) in its pools. The bar/restaurant serves sandwiches and rum punch amidst cannons from sunken ships.

Atlantis Submarines Tour

Go on an underwater adventure in a real submarine with Bridgetown’s Atlantis Submarines Tour, which takes you down into the ocean to see the island’s glorious marine life at play in a coral reef that began forming 20 million years ago.  

Barbados Wildlife and Nature

Sailing tours and snorkelling picnics

Swim near (but not with) protected hawksbill and leatherback turtles as they feed amongst the coral, perhaps by taking a sailing tour/snorkelling picnic. You can also see them on a turtle walk or while kayaking or diving, or combine a glass-bottomed boat snorkelling trip with a shipwreck adventure or even a horse-ride. Between February and July, moonlight cruises can take you to see turtles nesting on the beaches.

Harrisons Cave

Explore the crystallised limestone cavern of Harrisons Cave with its stalactites and stalagmites (sometimes joining in the middle to form a pillar), its waterfalls and its emerald pools. Kids love trundling inside in the little electric tram.

Barbados History and Culture 

Grenade Hall and Farley Hill National Park

Explore the Grenade Hall, one of the old signal stations that dotted the island as a way of spreading warnings about slave rebellions or attacking ships, roam its forest full of healing plants, with signs explaining their usage, and picnic in Farley Hill National Park, with spectacular views over the Atlantic Coast from the grounds of a now-ruined mansion that once belonged to a British planter.

Morgan Lewis Windmill

Explore the unique Morgan Lewis Windmill, Barbados’ last sugar windmill. Wwned by the island’s National Trust, it’s a museum with intact machinery, sugar-mill and plantation artefacts, and old photos. Take a tour and climb to the top to enjoy great views, an ice cream or cool drink in hand.

Gun Hill

Discover another signal station at Gun Hill in St George, with further panoramic views, a display of military memorabilia, including a cannon, and a statue of a lion carved from a single piece of rock by one of the station officers (slave rebellions and pirate attacks must have been scarce during his watches).

Mount Gay Rum Distilleries

Found out all about the island’s famous ‘golden spirit’ at the Mount Gay Rum Distilleries, with guided tours of its museum featuring a replica of a ‘good ol’ Barbadian rum shop’, the opportunity to touch and smell the essential ingredients (sugar-cane, molasses and distilled, unaged alcohol) and tastings.