edit Barbados Travel Guide

• Bridgetown, including the capital city of Barbados and surrounding areas in St. Michael Parish.
• Central Barbados, including the parishes of St. George and St. Thomas. Harrison Cave, the site of a massive limestone cavern, is the main sight.
• Eastern Barbados, (the East Coast) the rugged Atlantic side of the island. Crane Beach in St. Phillip Parish, and Bathsheba in St. Joseph Parish are the main sights. Also includes the less traveled parishes of St. John and St. Andrew. Bathsheba is a popular areas, with the island's best-known surfing spot (The Soup Bowl) and tide pools - ideal for soaking, and Cattlewash, a long stretch of beach with very rough waters. Other fishing villages include: Martin's Bay and Consett Bay.
• Western Barbados, (the West Coast) the calm, caribbean side of the island covering the parishes of St. James and St. Peter and St. Lucy. Holetown, Speightstown are the two main towns.
• Southern Barbados, (the South Coast) the parish of Christchurch. Includes St. Lawrence Gap, a lively area full of bars and restaurants; Oistins, famous for its Friday fish fry on the beach; and Grantley Adams International Airport. Most of the budget hotels, guesthouses, and apartment are located here.

By plane

• Sir Grantley Adams International Airport (),() For its size, Barbados boasts a large international airport with dozens of flights arriving in the high season from the UK and Canada as well as the United States. Virgin Atlantic and British Airways have many flights to Barbados while American is the dominant carrier from the United States (Miami and New York). The airport is 13km (8 miles) east of Bridgetown. Buses run from a stop across the road from the airport up the coast to Bridgetown, Holetown, and Speightstown, but a taxi is the most convenient way to get to your hotel on arrival.

By boat

Many cruise ships dock in Bridgetown, and in fact the Bridgetown deep water harbour has just been expanded to accommodate even more vessels. Private moorings are available around the island. Note: stiff penalties prohibit the dropping of anchors on coral reefs.

Barbados has experienced several waves of human habitation. The first wave were of the Saladoid-Barrancoid group, farmers, fishermen, and ceramists who arrived by canoe from Venezuela's Orinoco Valley around 350 CE. The Arawak people were the second wave, arriving from South America around 800 CE. Arawak settlements on the island include Stroud Point, Chandler Bay, Saint Luke's Gully, and Mapp's Cave. According to accounts by descendants of the aboriginal Arawak tribes on other local islands, the original name for Barbados was Ichirouganaim. In the 13th century, the Caribs arrived from South America in the third wave, displacing both the Arawak and the Salodoid-Barrancoid. For the next few centuries, they lived in isolation on the island.

The name "Barbados" comes from a Portuguese explorer named Pedro Campos in 1536, who originally called the island Los Barbados ("The Bearded Ones"), after the appearance of the island's fig trees, whose long hanging aerial roots resembled beards. Between Campos' sighting in 1536 and 1550, Spanish conquistadors seized many Caribs on Barbados and used them as slave labor on plantations. The others fled the island, moving elsewhere.

Barbados was formally settled by the British in 1627. After several failed crops of cotton, sugarcane was introduced, and the colony established itself as a profitable plantation economy. Enslaved Africans were the primary source of labour on these plantations until 1834, when they won their freedom through several years of rebellion, supported by increasing pressure from anti-slavery movements in Britain.

The economy remained heavily dependent on sugar, rum, and molasses production through most of the 20th century. Though the shackles were removed, much of the repressive labour conditions of slavery remained on the island, until the 1930s, when the educated black middle class fought for universal adult suffrage and took the control of the country's local governance away from the British-descended local aristocracy. The country began a process of social and political reforms in the 1940s and 1950s which led to complete independence from the UK in 1966. In the 1980s, tourism and manufacturing surpassed the sugar industry in economic importance. Barbados has developed into a stable democracy with one of the highest rates of literacy in the Western Hemisphere.

Locals refer to themselves as Bajans and things Barbadian as Bajan.

• Flying fish -- the icon of the islands is found on coins, bills, and menus. Flying fish is usually served lightly breaded and fried, with a yellow sauce. Be warned: this yellow sauce consists of VERY hot Scotch Bonnet peppers with onions in a mustard sauce.
• Pepperpot -- a dish of long tradition and great pride among the Bajans, it is a pork stew in a spicy dark brown sauce. Don't miss this.
• Try "Flying fish cutters," a local sandwich.
• Visitors seeking fast food will probably be disappointed; the titanic burger chains of the US failed miserably upon introduction to Barbados (Bajans eat nearly no beef). However, chicken and fish sandwiches are wildly popular, so KFC and Chefette are ubiquitous.
• Bajan cuisine is a strange mix of spicy, flavorful treats along with bland traditional English fayre. So be prepared for meals where firey stews sit side-by-side with beans on toast.
• Every Friday night the place to be is the town of Oistins (on the south coast) for the "fish fry". This is a market where you can buy fresh fish cooked according to local recipes. Locals stay there late and dance until the early hours of the morning. This is now the second most popular tourist attraction on the island, after Harrison's Cave.
• There are many fine restaurants on the island with the top two being The Cliff (on the west coast) and The Restaurant at South Sea (on the south coast). Both are quite expensive, but serve beautiful food and a wonderful dining experience, overlooking the sea. Still, you can find many hidden gems if you look hard enough. Waterfront Cafe on the Careenage is an excellent place to sample Bajan Cuisine while sipping the local Banks Beer or a spicy Rum Punch.
• Fish cakes, BBQ pig tails, fresh coconut, and roasted peanuts are offered by the many street vendors.
• Weekend shut down! Everything shuts down on the weekend so plan ahead especially if you are self-catering. Most stores are open till noon on Saturday and then nothing opens till Monday morning. On holiday weekends (Good Friday, national holidays, etc.) that fall on or close to a weekend stores may be closed for three or four days at a stretch. Convenience stores attached to gas stations may stay open but don't assume they will be.

Drink

Barbados has some of the purest water in the world that can be drunk straight from the tap. Cruise ship employees are often seen stocking up on their water supplies while docked at the island.

Rum and rum drinks are featured at every bar. Perhaps the most famous domestic brand offered is Mount Gay Rum, which is very delicious. Tours of the Mount Gay Rum factory are available, during which samples of their premium aged rum may be given.

Beer and wine is easy to find as well. Banks beer is Barbados' own beer and very good.

Tours of the Banks brewery are also available. While the tour itself is very hot and only moderately interesting an unlimited amount of beer is provided to those waiting for the tour to begin. Try to show up a few hours early and take advantage of a very good deal.

Shopping

The local currency is the Bajan dollar, but US dollars are accepted just about everywhere in shops and restaurants. The exchange rate is fixed at 1.995 Bajan dollars to the US Dollar but almost everyone uses US$1 = BD$2. Keep in mind that exchangers in hotels may insist on taking an additional percentage of the exchange (typically 5%). Lots of duty free shops in Bridgetown catering to the cruise liner trade, where you can buy jewelry, etc.

Barbados has a great variety of street vendors. Haggle aggressively. Don't stop until you're at about a third of the original price.

The official language in Barbados is English. Locals also speak an English dialect reminiscent of the Scottish highland dialect.....which is referred to as Bajan. There are a few African words interspersed with the dialect. Communication will not be a problem for any English speaker as Barbados has one of the highest literacy rates in the Western Hemisphere of around 99.9 percent.

There are several small internet cafes located around the island as well as connections offered by the larger resort hotels.

Beware of the sun, Barbados is only 13 degrees off of the equator and you can burn very easily. It is very important to keep your water intake high. Drink plenty of water or bring an umbrella to shade yourself against the sun, which is commonly done in the country.

During nightfall, it is advisable to put on bug spray, as mosquitoes are often a nuisance to anyone staying outdoors for prolonged periods. This is most prevalent while eating at outdoor restaurants.

Although a very safe place to travel, it is generally suggested to avoid certain high risk activities. Such activities include walking on secluded beaches late at night, or walking in unfamiliar residential neighborhoods away from main roads.

The most common kinds of crimes against tourists include taxi fraud, robbery, and shortchanging; however, even these are rare and usually confined to high-traffic places like Bridgetown. Bajans are by nature exceptionally friendly, and will go out of their way to be kind to tourists, especially in the earlier part of the tourist season (November and December).

A special area of concern for visitors to Barbados is drugs. The country's strict anti-drug policy is made apparent to visitors coming through Customs. In practice, however, Europeans and Americans in Barbados can be offered marijuana or even cocaine frequently. Sellers will often roam the beaches selling aloe vera or other such innocuous goods as a pretense to begin a conversation about "ganja," "smoke" or "bad habits." As a result, many hotels and resorts now ban the use of aloe vera under the pretense that it "stains the towels." Regardless of one's inclination to using these drugs, it is not advisable to accept these offers. Marijuana is considered bad and is not accepted by Bajan police. While Bajan police are not frequently encountered, they prosecute drug crimes with great prejudice.

If travelling with a group of friends try to keep a tally of who gets offered drugs the most. Anything less than three times per day is abnormally low.

 

Driving is on the left. The bus system is extensive, cheap, and fast - if you're headed to somewhere on the main route - but a car (or mini-moke) is the only way to see many of the out-of-the-way sights. Many of the drivers will hold a bus for you if they see you're from out of town reflecting the typical welcoming spirit. Buses are run by the Barbados Transport Authority (blue color) and are quiet. Private operators include the yellow buses, which play very loud music, and private mini-vans (white color), which are usually cramped and crowded. The two privately run means of transport are often driven very fast and recklessly. All charge the same fare (BD$1.50). Yellow buses and minivans offer change and even accept US dollars. BTA buses only accept local currency and do not give change.

There are also more than enough taxis to take you wherever you need to go on the island for reasonable prices. They do not use meters and it is best to negotiate the price before you get in. However, most taxi drivers are honest and you are unlikely to be overcharged.

Mopeds and bikes can also be rented, on the island, to explore sites that aren't easily reached by cars.

Another fun way to get around is to rent a moke available from any number of local car rental agencies.

If you are driving, roads on the island are generally quite narrow, with the exception of the ABC highway. It is advisable to be extra cautious as many roads on the island have sharp turns, steep inclines, and are generally quite bumpy, although most are paved. Many of these proclaimed highways do not have sidewalks, so there can be pedestrians on the street sharing the road. Many bus stops are also on the side of roads where there are no sidewalks.