Trinidad and Tobago · Trinidad
Port of Spain
The birthplace of steelpan and home of the Caribbean's biggest Carnival, a working capital where the music and the food are the point.
Port of Spain is Trinidad's capital and the home of its Carnival: a hot, busy port on the Gulf of Paria with the forested Northern Range rising straight behind it. At its heart is the Queen's Park Savannah, a vast open park ringed by colonial mansions, food stalls and the stages where the steelpan and calypso finals are decided each Carnival. It is a working city rather than a resort, and its rewards are music, street food and a mix of African, Indian, Chinese and Creole cultures, with beaches, mangroves and rainforest an easy drive away.
Suggested stay
3–5 days
Language
English
Currency
TTD
Timezone
UTC-4
Why you'll love Port of Spain
Carnival J'ouvert's mud and paint before dawn on Monday, then the costumed bands on Tuesday, after weeks of fetes, calypso and pan rehearsals building up to it
Steelpan the instrument was born in this city's hillside yards, and in Carnival season the big steel orchestras rehearse nightly in panyards anyone can stand at and listen
Street food doubles for breakfast, roti at lunch, corn soup and coconut water by the Savannah at night, with Indian, African, Chinese and Creole cooking all in the mix
Wild edges the Northern Range rainforest, the north-coast beaches and the scarlet ibis roosts of Caroni Swamp all sit within an hour or so of the city
Best time to visit
Jan-Apr
31-33° days
10.657° N, 61.518° W
UTC-4 · America/Port of Spain
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Weather & when to go to Port of Spain
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Jan-Apr
Watch for Jun-Nov cyclones & hurricanes risk · Aug monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Port of Spain
January to April is the dry season, and Carnival inside it is the busiest, dearest stretch of the year, with rooms booked out months ahead. June to December is the wet season, with heavy downpours and street flooding in low parts of the city, and August is the wettest, stickiest month. Trinidad sits at the southern edge of the hurricane belt and is rarely hit.
Top things to do in Port of Spain
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Carnival - J'ouvert to the Tuesday parade
culture arts nightlife music 👍 PopularThe two days before Ash Wednesday, built up to over weeks of fetes. J'ouvert starts in the dark on Monday morning with mud, paint, powder and rhythm sections; on Tuesday the costumed bands cross the judging stages and fill the streets until evening. Visitors can play mas by booking a costume with a band months ahead, or watch from the roadside.
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Panorama and the panyards - steelpan at full strength
nightlife music culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedIn the weeks before Carnival the big steel orchestras rehearse most nights in their panyards around the city, often more than a hundred players drilling one arrangement, and visitors are welcome to stand and listen. It comes to a head at the Panorama final at the Savannah on the Saturday before Carnival.
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Queen's Park Savannah - the city's great open lawn
culture arts food 👍 PopularA huge grassy park at the top of the city, once a sugar estate, walked in a loop by half of Port of Spain in the cool of the evening. Vendors cut coconuts open with a cutlass for the water, and at night food stalls around its edge sell corn soup, oysters in pepper sauce and more.
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Doubles and street food - eat Trinidad on foot
food 👍 PopularDoubles, two soft fried bara filled with curried channa and a dash of pepper sauce, are the national breakfast, sold from roadside carts from early morning. Add roti wrapped around curry goat or chicken, aloo pie and pholourie, and in the evening the Chinese, Creole and Indian cooking along Ariapita Avenue.
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The Magnificent Seven - mansions on the Savannah's west side
history culture artsSeven grand houses built in the first years of the twentieth century along Maraval Road, among them the turreted Stollmeyer's Castle, modelled on a Scottish castle, the Queen's Royal College school and the Archbishop's House. Most are admired from the pavement rather than visited inside.
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Ariapita Avenue - liming in Woodbrook
nightlife music foodThe Avenue is the city's main strip for going out, a run of bars, restaurants and food stalls among the old fretwork houses of Woodbrook, busiest late in the week and wall-to-wall in Carnival season. Liming, the Trini art of hanging out with no particular plan, is the whole point.
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Royal Botanic Gardens - two centuries of tropical trees
nature wildlife historyLaid out in 1818 on the northern edge of the Savannah beside President's House, with mature tropical trees gathered from across the old empire and shady paths away from the traffic. The Emperor Valley Zoo sits next door.
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Fort George - the view over the Gulf of Paria
history scenicA British hilltop fort from 1804 above the western suburbs, with old cannon on the ramparts and the widest view of the city, the harbour and, on a clear day, the mountains of Venezuela across the gulf.
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National Museum and Art Gallery - Cazabon to Carnival
culture arts historyThe national museum, just below the Savannah, runs from geology and Amerindian history through the colonial centuries to Carnival costume, and holds the country's main collection of Michel-Jean Cazabon's nineteenth-century paintings of the island.
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Red House and Woodford Square - the old heart of downtown
historyThe red-painted Beaux-Arts parliament building faces Woodford Square, where Eric Williams gave the open-air lectures of the 1950s that fed the independence movement, remembered ever since as the University of Woodford Square. Holy Trinity Cathedral stands on the same square.
Best areas to stay in Port of Spain
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Woodbrook
Food and nightlife $$Old wooden houses and the Avenue's nightlife
Explore hotels in Woodbrook →
St Clair and around the Savannah
Comfort and quiet $$$Leafy, upscale streets beside the park
Explore hotels in St Clair and around the Savannah →
Maraval
Quiet, with a car $$Green valley suburb on the north-coast road
Explore hotels in Maraval →
Chaguaramas
Sailors and yachties $$Marinas and boatyards on the western peninsula
Explore hotels in Chaguaramas →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Port of Spain
Getting to & around Port of Spain
Getting there
Fly into POS at Piarco, east of the city, then taxi in along the highways
Flight
Piarco International Airport (POS)
Piarco sits on the plain east of the city, with direct flights from North America, London and around the Caribbean. Most visitors take a registered airport taxi in along the Churchill-Roosevelt and Beetham highways, around 40 minutes when the roads are clear and much longer at rush hour.
Ferry
Port of Spain ferry terminal
The inter-island ferries from Scarborough, Tobago dock on the downtown waterfront after a crossing of a few hours
Cruise
Port of Spain cruise terminal
Cruise ships berth on the downtown waterfront, within walking distance of Independence Square and a short taxi ride from the Savannah
Getting around
Maxi taxi
Minibuses with a coloured stripe marking the route area they serve, running from City Gate and stands around town; frequent, cheap and flagged down anywhere along the route
TBC
Route taxi
Shared cars on fixed routes with number plates starting with H, leaving from set stands downtown once full; avoid unmarked private cars touting for fares
TBC
Bus
PTSC buses leave from City Gate, the main terminal in the old railway station downtown, running east along a dedicated bus lane and south along the highways
TBC
Taxi
Registered taxis wait at hotels and the airport; they are unmetered, so agree the fare first, and they are the sensible choice after dark
TBC
Walking
Woodbrook, St Clair and the Savannah are walkable by day, though heat and traffic make longer walks hard work; take a taxi at night
Free
Day trips from Port of Spain
Maracas Bay
Half dayNorth-coast beach
The island's best-known beach, a wide sweep of sand under forested hills, reached on a winding road with a lookout over the coast. The ritual is bake and shark from the stalls behind the beach, heaped with sauces. Weekends are busy and the sea can be rough.
Getting there
car
About 45 minutes by car or taxi over the Northern Range via Maraval
Caroni Swamp
Half dayMangrove birding
Flat boats wind through the mangrove channels in the late afternoon to watch flocks of scarlet ibis, the national bird, fly in to roost and turn the trees red at dusk. Herons, egrets and the occasional tree boa appear along the way.
Getting there
car | tour
About 30 minutes south by car to the boat landing off the highway, or on a tour
Chaguaramas and Down the Islands
Full dayPeninsula and islands
The western peninsula, a US base in the Second World War, is now boardwalk, boatyards and forest. Swim at Macqueripe Bay, walk the Tucker Valley trails, then take a boat to Gaspar Grande for the Gasparee Caves, or out to the island holiday homes locals call Down the Islands.
Getting there
car | ferry | tour
About 30 minutes west by car; boats to the offshore islands leave from the marinas
Asa Wright Nature Centre and the Arima Valley
Full dayRainforest birding
A former cocoa and coffee estate deep in the Arima Valley rainforest, now one of the Caribbean's best-known birding reserves. Hummingbirds, honeycreepers, toucans and bearded bellbirds are regulars, and oilbirds nest in a cave on the grounds.
Getting there
car | tour
About 90 minutes east and up into the Northern Range by car or on a tour
Pitch Lake, La Brea
Full dayNatural asphalt lake
The largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, a lake of pitch you can walk across with a local guide, soft underfoot in places and dotted with warm pools. Sir Walter Raleigh caulked his ships with it in 1595.
Getting there
car | tour
About 2 hours south by car along the highways, or on a tour
Grande Riviere
1-2 daysLeatherback turtle nesting
One of the world's densest leatherback nesting beaches. From around March to August the turtles haul ashore at night to lay, watched with licensed local guides, and hatchlings emerge later in the season. It is a long drive, so most people stay the night in the village.
Getting there
car | tour
About 3 hours by car along the north-east coast, or on an overnight tour
A little history of Port of Spain
Amerindian peoples lived on this shore long before Columbus sighted Trinidad in 1498 and named it for three hills on its south-east coast. Spain held the island thinly for almost three centuries, moving its capital from inland St Joseph down to this harbour in 1757. The 1783 Cedula of Population drew French Catholic planters and the people they enslaved from neighbouring islands, and with them the patois, the Catholic calendar and the masquerade that became Carnival.
Britain took the island in 1797 and the town grew as a sugar and trading port. After emancipation, indentured labourers from India arrived from 1845, which is why doubles and roti are as Trinidadian as calypso. Carnival was fought over in the streets in the Canboulay riots of 1881, steelpan emerged from the city's hillside yards in the 1930s and 40s, and the US built a wartime base at Chaguaramas. Port of Spain was capital of the short-lived West Indies Federation, then of an independent nation from 1962; oil and gas, not tourism, pay the bills.
Columbus sights the island on his third voyage and names it Trinidad
The Spanish governor moves the capital from St Joseph to Port of Spain
The Cedula of Population opens the island to Catholic settlers, many of them French planters
A British force under Sir Ralph Abercromby takes the island from Spain
The Fatel Razack lands the first indentured labourers from India
The Canboulay riots, as Carnival revellers clash with police in the streets of Port of Spain
Port of Spain becomes capital of the West Indies Federation
Independence from Britain, with Eric Williams as the first prime minister
Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type A / B
115 V, 60 Hz
Dialing
+1-868
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Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
FAQs about Port of Spain
▸ When is the best time to visit Port of Spain?
January to April is the dry season and the easiest weather of the year, and Carnival falls inside it, in February or early March. That also makes it the peak time, so book early if your dates cross Carnival. From June to December the rains set in, with heavy downpours and some street flooding, and August is the wettest, most humid month.
▸ When is Carnival?
Carnival Monday and Tuesday are the two days before Ash Wednesday, so the dates move each year between early February and early March. The season starts well before: fetes from soon after New Year, calypso and pan rehearsals, the Panorama final on the Saturday, Dimanche Gras on the Sunday night and J'ouvert before dawn on Monday.
▸ Is Port of Spain safe?
Crime is a genuine concern in Trinidad, though most of it is concentrated in poorer districts east of the centre that visitors have little reason to enter. Use registered taxis rather than walking after dark, keep valuables out of sight in crowds, especially at Carnival, and check your own government's current advice before you go.
▸ Can you swim in Port of Spain?
Not in the city itself: the harbour is a working port on the calm, murky Gulf of Paria. The nearest good beach is Maracas Bay on the north coast, about 45 minutes over the hills, with Las Cuevas and Blanchisseuse further along. Macqueripe Bay on the Chaguaramas peninsula is closer and sheltered. For white sand and clear water, go to Tobago.
▸ How do you get to Tobago from Port of Spain?
Either a short domestic flight from Piarco, well under half an hour in the air, or the inter-island ferry from the Port of Spain waterfront to Scarborough, a crossing of a few hours. Both fill up around Carnival, Easter and holiday weekends, so book ahead.
▸ Is Port of Spain expensive?
Day to day it follows local prices rather than resort prices: street food, maxi taxis and route taxis are cheap. Hotels are the expensive part, especially the big business hotels, and everything costs far more in Carnival season, when rooms and costumes are booked months ahead.