Bahamas

Best time to visit

Best time to travel

December to April is drier and more settled. The hurricane season runs from June to November, with most storm activity between August and October, so keep plans flexible then.

Travel tips

Travel by Ildy tips

• The Family Islands can also be reached by sea: mail boats leave Nassau’s Potter’s Cay dock for islands from Bimini to Inagua. The trips are slow, often overnight and weather-dependent, so check schedules with the Dockmaster and leave spare days.
• For conch salad, go to the Fish Fry at Arawak Cay, just west of downtown Nassau, where vendors dice raw conch to order with onion, tomato, lime and hot pepper. Bring cash; many stalls take no cards.
• Junkanoo fills Nassau's Bay Street on Boxing Day and New Year's morning, with groups parading through the small hours until well after sunrise. Claim a spot at dawn to see the costumes in daylight.
• In Hope Town on Elbow Cay, the red-and-white Elbow Reef Lighthouse still burns kerosene: keepers climb 101 steps and hand-wind its mechanism through the night, after residents refused automation in the 1990s.