Countryside Antigua and Barbuda

Most visitors to Antigua see only the coasts. The island's interior — a low volcanic highland covered in dry scrub on the north and east, transitioning to genuine tropical rainforest on the south-central hills — is where the island's quieter face lives. Fig Tree Drive, a winding road through the island's most densely vegetated area, passes banana groves, black pineapple farms, and hillside gardens before emerging above Cades Bay on the west coast. The drive takes 20 minutes but rewards slow travel with unannounced stops: a fruit stall, a farm gate, a view you didn't plan for.

The countryside also holds the island's most important historical sites. Betty's Hope sugar plantation on the east coast is the best-preserved plantation ruin in the Eastern Caribbean. The walled fields and stone walls that once defined plantation boundaries still run across the central landscape, visible from elevated roads. The cattle ponds — circular dry-stone reservoirs built in the 18th century to collect rainwater for the dry season — appear at intervals across the island, now used by egrets and herons.

The countryside rewards a rental car more than any guided circuit. Drive Fig Tree Drive slowly. Stop when you see something. The island is small enough that getting genuinely lost is impossible, but discovering something unannounced is entirely possible.

Fig Tree Drive — Antigua's rainforest road

Fig Tree Drive runs from All Saints village in the north to Old Road Bay on the west coast, cutting through the island's most verdant landscape in a series of tight hairpin bends through overhead tree canopy. Despite the name, there are no fig trees — the "fig" in question is the Antiguan word for banana, and the road is lined with plantations of Cavendish and red banana. Black pineapple farms appear on the hillside verges; the signs ("Local Fruits For Sale") are handwritten and often staffed by whoever happens to be at the roadside at that hour.

The Fig Tree Cultural Village, halfway along the drive, is a collection of craft stalls and a rum shop with views across the southern hills. It can be tourist-facing and variable in quality — the best thing to buy is local jam, hot sauce, or a bottle of the locally produced sorrel liqueur. More interesting: pull over at any viewpoint on the road and look south. On clear days you can see Montserrat, with its active volcanic plume, 43 kilometres away across the water.

The tuk-tuk adventure covers Fig Tree Drive as the inland portion of a combined rainforest and beach day — the most atmospheric way to experience this landscape is in an open vehicle rather than a sealed car, moving slowly enough to smell the vegetation and hear the birds.

Betty's Hope and the plantation landscape

Betty's Hope, near Pares on the island's east coast, was established in the 1650s by the Codrington family and operated as a sugar plantation until the late 19th century. The two restored windmill towers — the only fully restored sugar mill windmills in the Caribbean — have been returned to working order; the sails turn in wind above the crushing stone machinery below. The adjacent museum explains the complete sugar production process and, with unusual directness, the enslaved labour system that made it possible.

The surrounding landscape is still recognisably a plantation: the cane fields are long gone, replaced by scrub, but the stone walls defining field boundaries remain. Plantation Great Houses, now private homes, appear on elevated sites with views across to the Atlantic. The cattle pond near the site is a good place to see Caribbean cattle egrets — white birds that follow cattle, picking insects from the disturbed ground. Free entry to the site; the museum is staffed on weekday mornings.

The north and east — Devil's Bridge and the Atlantic coast

The road from Saint John's to Devil's Bridge on the north-east coast crosses the island's driest landscape: low thorny scrub, saltponds, and the wide flat expanses of the north-east that were used for sugar cane in the plantation era and remain largely empty now. The contrast with the rainforest of Fig Tree Drive is complete — same island, entirely different ecology. Devil's Bridge sits at the very north-east tip, a natural limestone arch where the Atlantic has bored through the coastal rock. The blowholes erupt with each wave; in any swell, the sound and spray travel 50 metres. Spectacular when rough, atmospheric even when calm.

Long Bay, a few kilometres south, is the island's best surf spot — a short, fast reef break best in December through March when the north-east trade winds are consistent. The beach itself is long, Atlantic-facing, and usually empty except for the occasional surfer and the pelicans that patrol the break. Bring everything you need; there are no facilities.

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