Our trip to Nevis & St. Kitts

I’m excited to finally put together an extensive guide from our trip to Nevis and St. Kitts that we took in June. In early 2024, we started talking about where we wanted to take our family trip this summer and we all decided we wanted to go somewhere new and different that we haven’t been to before. We love the beach and particularly the Bahamas and the Caribbean, so we started looking there. Nevis has been on our radar for a few years now thanks to the beautiful Four Seasons resort they have there (and my friend Sarah that’s been several times!), but since we were traveling with another family; we opted for a larger rental. Read more below and find out where we landed, what we did, where we ate and how we liked the island…

Nevis Travel Guide

How We Got There

Nevis takes a little work to get to, but that is what makes it quite special. We flew from Pensacola to Miami and then Miami to St. Kitts. From the St. Kitts airport, you take a 30 or 40 minute taxi ride to then hop on a boat to take you over to Nevis. Once you arrive to Nevis by boat, it was a short 10 or 15 minute taxi ride to our house for the week. We were lucky that all things went smoothly and were on time. We pre-arranged transportation before our arrival. I will mention that each of those transfers are definitely added expenses to your overall plane costs.

Where We Stayed

We stayed at a resort called Paradise Beach. It has around 15 to 20 villas probably ranging from 2 bedrooms to 4 bedroom units. The villas are so unique and pretty with their thatched roofs and private pools at each unit. The resort is so plush and beautiful with the 2 bedroom villas being right on the beach (which look so awesome with their own plunge pools on their balcony) and each of the larger villas residing up the hill. The resort has one main restaurant on property down at the beach where you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food was really delicious (we mainly ate breakfast and lunch here) and the staff and service were the BEST. The people that were there are incredibly friendly and kind and go out of their way to get you just what you want.

We had our own pool at our villa which we loved and we also utilized the beach some as well. The beach has complimentary water sport options that kids utilized a bit including kayaks and paddle boards and they have the beach bar located right there to enjoy food and drinks. The beaches in all of Nevis are volcanic sand, so they are dark in color and get really, really hot during the summer months. The kids feet were definitely burning, so I always recommend shoes or some type of water shoes for the kids.

Our villa had 4 bedroom and 4.5 bathrooms which was really nice. We had four adults and five kids stay in the house, so I was a little worried how everyone would sleep; but it was perfect! They had two identical masters with King beds where both of the couples slept and then the two boys had a twin bedroom to share and the girls had a king bedroom with a sofa that had a pull out couch that Molly slept on. So that room fit the 3 girls perfectly.

The kids would wake up every morning and the first thing they wanted to do was go explore outside and then would come report back to us how many monkeys they saw. This was such a fun surprise to us on the island just how many monkeys they had roaming around. We all made friends with one of the groundskeepers at the resort too and one day he came to our villa with a TON of amazing fruit from the property. The kids were dying for fresh mangoes from the mango trees and he also brought us two other types of fruit that were local to them and honestly I can not remember the names of them. We did not recognize these fruits at all and they did not taste very good in our opinion, ha!

Other hotel options we considered:

The Four Seasons Nevis – this is an absolutely beautiful resort as well that was a short 20 minute or so walk from our beach to their beach. The resort has multiple restaurant options, golf, tennis, water sports, pools, etc. It is really a beautiful spot and would be a wonderful place to stay on the island. We loved touring the property and eating lunch at one of their restaurants. This would be a great couples getaway spot or wonderful with families too.

Getting Around in Nevis

We didn’t rent a car on Nevis and took taxis around everywhere we needed. The taxis definitely get expensive but the concierge at our hotel was so great about booking them all for us and making it really simple. I heard you can rent ATV’s on the island which I think would be pretty fun for the week, but also renting a car might be a good option as well. I am glad we did taxis this time because we didn’t know our way around; but I will consider renting something if we went back.

Where We Ate

Eden – This was the restaurant at our resort that we loved. They served breakfast, lunch and dinner and often times we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. They have amazing pizzas as well that we brought poolside and ordered for the kids one night.
Drift – This special little restaurant has an old rustic house vibe with the most beautiful views overlooking the water and mountains of Nevis. They have indoor and outdoor seating but it’s all open air and very quaint.
On the Dune @ Four Seasons – This was an absolutely delicious meal for lunch at the Four Seasons. Everything we had was really good but the tuna poke salad was out of this world! I will be back for this one day.
Private Chef – We had a private chef arranged by our concierge one night which was pretty nice. For the expense, I would probably have just gone out to dinner; but this would be a good option if you had a larger group size. We only had 4 adults, so it probably wasn’t worth it.
Reggae Beach St. Kitts – This was a total beach bar over on St. Kitts that we stopped at for lunch on our catamaran boat day. Drinks were good and it was your typical sandy beach bar in the islands! It is pretty popular as it is right down the beach from the Park Hyatt St. Kitts and the Marriott St. Kitts isn’t too far away.
Montpelier’s Mill – This is a 300 year old sugar mill that you can enjoy a private dinner inside. The whole resort, bar area and then dinner area is one-of-a-kind spectacular. I sadly have to say that our food for the evening was less than stellar; but I feel certain that is not always the case. I just wanted to be honest because it is an expensive meal, but an amazing ambiance.
Shipwreck Beach Bar St. Kitts – This is another casual beach bar style restaurant in St. Kitts that we stopped at by boat for lunch one day and ate. We all split some nachos for an appetizer that everyone devoured!
Yachtsman Grill – This was probably the all-around favorite dinner meal from the group. Everyone really enjoyed the food here and it was a really pretty atmosphere right on the beach. The kids enjoyed running out to the beach to play while they waited for their food to come.
Sunshine’s – We didn’t eat here, but we did stop here for the famous Killer Bee’s drink that is no joke! It’s your typical sweeter rum drink but I think this thing is quite potent!

Places we didn’t make but heard were fun or good:

Golden Rock Inn – We visited this beautiful and unique resort on our ATV funky monkey tour and it looked like a really nice dining experience. I would say it would be worth it to come up here just to see the resort and the neat bar area.
Bananas – A volcanic, hillside restaurant with a nice looking menu that we also did not make it to.
Mangoes at the Four Seasons – This looked like a really good dinner option with a pretty atmosphere right on the water, but we ran out of time to try it!
The Hermitage – On Wednesday nights they have a famous BBQ that is supposed to be really fun and delicious.
Turtle Time
Barefoot and Chill – great for sushi
L’escale – Wine bar and bistro right on the beach.

What We Did

Enjoyed our resort pool and beach area
Explored the Four Seasons Resort
The Funky Monkey Tour – This was a pretty fun tour on ATV’s. We fit into 2 ATV’s with our group of 9 people and we had one tour guide. They take you around to some smaller beaches to explore and up higher terrain to get some pretty views as well as stops at a few of the smaller resorts around the island including Golden Rock Inn.
Full Day Private Catamaran and Snorkeling with Leeward Islands Charters – This was probably everyone’s favorite day being on the catamaran all day. It was a large boat with a crew of 3 and they were all super helpful and nice. They had beer and rum punches and soft drinks on the boat and we stopped at one snorkel spot and a spot for lunch.
Half Day Boat Day with St. Kitts Watersports – We booked this at the last minute to get on the water again and maybe explore a little more of St. Kitts. We hit a few spots on the boat and had a pretty good with them as well.

Things we didn’t make it to, but sounded very interesting…

Alexander Hamilton Walking Tour
Horseback Riding
Historical Charleston Walk with Nevis Sun Tours
Hiking up Nevis Peak – Both this hike and the one below looked like fairly intense hikes and not for the faint of heart or small children. They did look beautiful based on the photos and videos I found but not easy hikes at all.
Russell’s Rest Nature Hike (waterfalls hike)
Nevis Botanical Tour
Cooking with Ras Iroy
Village Food Tour
Ziplining in St. Kitts

Our Schedule

Sunday June 9th –
Arrive to Nevis around 4:30pm and check-in our villa.
Explore the property a bit and decide to order pizzas from the restaurant and bring to our pool to have dinner poolside.
Monday June 10th-
Spend the day enjoying our resort. Breakfast at Eden and then spend the morning at the beach. The kids utilize the complimentary toys and find a worker that brings us fresh coconuts on the beach to drink and enjoy. We walk to The Four Seasons resorts to explore and have lunch there. Dinner at Drift Restaurant.
Tuesday June 11th-
Full Day Catamaran Sailing Day. Lunch at Reggae Beach and snorkeling on the boat. Private Chef dinner at the house for the adults.
Wednesday June 12th –
Enjoyed a slow morning while the men cooked a pancake breakfast at the house and kids swam while the Mom’s played Mahjong poolside :). We had a scheduled ATV tour at 1:30pm called the Funky Monkey Tour. Dinner at 7pm at the Montpelier’s Mill. We got a babysitter for the kids and the adults went to the old sugar mill for dinner and drinks.
Thursday June 14th –
Half Day charter boat with St. Kitts Watersports. Lunch at Shipwreck beach bar and grill on St. Kitts. Dinner at Yachtsman Grill and celebrated Carson’s birthday.
Friday June 15th –
Our final day. We enjoyed one last breakfast at Eden’s at our resort and then packed up and started our way back to the states.

Final Thoughts and Review

We really enjoyed exploring a new island on this trip and loved the lush landscaping of the island and the mountainous feel of our island plus those that surrounded. Our resort was wonderful and we loved our house. The people all over the island were so friendly and made it a joy to be around. I was impressed with how many restaurants the island offered and really how many things they have to do around the island. You can make your trip to Nevis as quiet and unplugged as you’d like or you can take advantage of learning the history of the island on tours or renting boats for the day and exploring the islands. I felt like we left Nevis with more things that we could have done and I kind of love that feeling. It keeps you wishing to go back one day.

I would say that the dark volcanic sand is the biggest negative from our trip which we knew going into it. We are spoiled with powdery, white sand here in Pensacola along the Gulf Coast and not only is the dark sand not very pretty, but it does get really hot!

This is a special little island that I would definitely recommend checking out though. I love exploring new areas and I am so happy we saw this beautiful slice of the Caribbean. When we were headed home, we asked the kids what they thought and they said it was their favorite trip we’ve ever taken!! So there is that….

St. Kitts

I mainly discuss Nevis in this post because that is where we stayed and spent most of our time, but these two islands are so close to each other; you really can hit both in one trip. We considered staying 2 nights in St. Kitts to start our trip and then finish with 5 nights in Nevis, but we decided not to do all the moving around and just do Nevis. If we had stayed in St. Kitts, I would look at the Park Hyatt or the Marriott. This island seems to be the busier island of the two and we even learned that it has a casino. They have a zip lining excursion on St. Kitts as well as quite a few restaurants. As I mentioned above, it is a short 15 minute or so boat trip from one island to the other, so you can get back and forth fairly easy. I would say that I definitely feel partial to Nevis and loved the feel of that island more, but I do think have a split trip between both could be a really nice experience.