I ended up booking my trip to St Martin just three weeks before going. I wanted to go on a birthday trip like I normally do but wanted to keep an eye on covid rates in different places because of the boom of Covid due to Omicron so was waiting until last minute. My main criteria for my birthday trip was someplace warm, someplace I’ve never been, a place that was a direct flight from Washington DC and less than seven hours, and lower Covid rates. Costa Rica and Panama were my initial front runners, but then the flight I wanted to Costa Rica booked up and if I went to Panama, to get to the beach I wanted to go to, I would have to take an additional flight. Even though St Martin was a level 4 covid risk from the US State Department, it is only had 49 active cases over the past month, averaging about one new case a day so I thought it wasn’t that bad of a risk.
St. Martin is an island located in the West Indies and is half Dutch and half French. It uses both currencies and has both languages in the subsequent territories on the island which is interesting since the island is only 37 square miles. Apparently, Christopher Columbus sailed here, but left right away after discovering the island was full of cannibals. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any cannibals when I went. Both sides do actually speak English and take US currency. I stayed on the French side of the island so am more familiar with that side, but you do fly into Sint Maarten, the Dutch side, and I spent a day on the Dutch side. Although each side is marked, there isn’t any type of border crossing or passport control to get from one side to the other.
The requirements right now to get into St Martin are either fully vaccinated less than a year from your last shot or a covid test. You also need to fill out a health certification three days before the flight and purchase health insurance on that site for $15. The flight from DC was only four and a half hours, although there is only one flight a week that is nonstop—there are a lot of other flights but they require a layover. Since I waited to book only three weeks before the trip, the flight was of course more expensive than it would have been had I booked way in advance at around $600 including seat selection on United. Going through customs at the St Martin airport does take quite awhile. We were probably in line for about an hour to go through everything. It’s a pretty small airport. I booked a car through Exclusive car rental and the company meets you after baggage claim which is very convenient to not have to shuttle anywhere or wait in any lines.
The drive to the where I was staying on the French side took about an hour with traffic. And there is a lot of traffic in general on the island. The island doesn’t seem big enough for all the cars on it so most are parked randomly on curbs and sidewalk and the drivers seem to have a death wish all around. There is still a lot of hurricane damage from 2018’s Hurricane Irma so a lot of places are still abandoned with some damage.
I decided to stay on the French side because I heard it was more chill over there but there was definitely still a lot of people. The Airbnb I rented was on the Northeast part of the island overlooking the ocean and absolutely gorgeous. Really one of the most stunning views I’ve had anywhere I’ve stayed and also came with a private pool. The hostess left us a pineapple and some snacks when we arrived. Upon arriving, there was a close grocery store called Super U a few minutes away from the Airbnb. Most of the products were written in French so it took a little bit to navigate and almost bought laundry pods instead of dishwashing pods but managed to get breakfast stuff and some dinner for the night. Since we had such a gorgeous view, I wanted to be at the Airbnb more than I normally would.
ORIENT BAY
I guess Sundays are super busy on the island, because we tried to go to Grand Case for the day but there just wasn’t any parking. I thought Orient Bay would be more crowded so reluctantly picked that as a plan B and stopped at a more private beach along the way called Le Gallon. Since I am very pale and require some type of shade, I resolved to going to beach clubs the whole trip which provide umbrellas and beach chairs, but if you can get away without that, there are a lot of beautiful not crowded beaches among the island. This one had a couple picnic tables and only had a handful of people. But I was craving some lunch and shade so continued on to Orient Bay.
It was actually very easy to park at Orient Bay. Orient Bay has a lot of beach clubs and is also known for a popular nude beach. While I’d rather not see people’s jiggly bits, I picked a beach club. Beach clubs are basically restaurants that either give you use of the umbrellas and lounge chairs for free if you eat there, or you pay a few for them. There are some beach clubs that have music and are bit of a more bar atmosphere thought if that’s what you’re looking for. I picked the Beach Club called Orange Fever based on some recommendations and got a table with umbrella in the sand.
A lot of the beach clubs close at 5:00pm. I’m also still not clear on the whole tipping system. Since you’re in European territories, you’d think there wouldn’t be tipping, but I think most of these places seem to ask for it as a tourist destination. I will say that I do think the restaurants in general are all on the higher side with pricing. I normally only really eat out in general once a day on a trip and so went back to the Airbnb for some snacks and to spend some time in the private pool.
CASE GRANDE
The next day, we decided to give parking at Case Grande another try since it was a Monday. We got there at 11AM and there was parking this time. We decided to go to Rainbow Café for lunch and beachin’ but lunch didn’t start until 12pm. We made a reservation for lunch then decided to go ahead and rent the umbrellas and lounge chairs for the day which was $20. The water in general in St Martin is very blue, clear, calm and warm—the perfect combination. When lunchtime came, we had a nice view of the beach and they also served sushi. There was also a bridge there that was pretty that I checked out.
SINT MAARTEN
I only spent one day on the Dutch side (Sint Maarten). The most popular thing to do on the Dutch side is watch the plane comes since they get pretty close to you and it looks really cool with them flying right over the beach. You can look at the airport schedule to find out the times that the planes come in. Since it is a smaller airport, planes aren’t constantly landing and the bigger planes don’t land until the afternoon. There is a parking lot that has a fee to park, but if you are going to one of the businesses, they validate it. Sunset Bar and Grill is the restaurant right next to Maho Beach where you watch the planes come in. You can also rent beach chairs and umbrellas on that beach but they were very expensive and it is not relaxing at all because there are people running around trying to sell you services like hair braiding and massages as well people walking through to see the planes so I wouldn’t recommend it.
We did eat at the restaurant which had nice views while waiting for the bigger planes to come in (United and Air France). The planes didn’t seem to come as close as I’ve seen when other people have posted photos though. So it’s a bit overrated with all the people on the beach.
As I mentioned before, there is still a lot of damage from the hurricane and not really a happening “main street kind of vibe, but Philipsburg seemed to be the closest thing to it. The photos I’ve seen show colorful streets and a happening place but it seemed a little run down. I did park at the very beginning and only really walked on Front Street and the boardwalk, so maybe there is some hidden gems, but these seems like the area where most people go who come on cruise ships as well as Maho Bay. There also seemed to be 2-3 cruise ships arriving at the Sint Maarten port per day.
The Dutch side also has a lot more stores, so I ended up stopping at Ace Hardware on the back to the Airbnb so that I could buy a float to float around the pool.
PINEL ISLAND
Back on the French side, Pinel Island was directly in front of our Airbnb and there was “ferry” close by that would take people to it every half hour. The ferry was actually a 20 seater boat and was $12 roundtrip, although we could have actually kayaked to the island if we wanted. The ride on the ferry only took about ten minutes and I’m sure you can guess what the island held—some beach clubs! I picked the beach club called “Yellow Beach” and immediately made lunch reservations (which was good because by 12PM, all the reservations were booked). This was my favorite day of the trip! It felt less crowded on the little island and I was also extra and was able to rent an extra umbrella to really stay out of the sun and they threw in an additional umbrella. So the total for two lounge chairs and three umbrellas was about $25.
Lunch was amazing! They have fresh local lobster which you actually get to pick out from the lobster trap that is still in the water. It is Caribbean spiny lobster which I think is a lot better than Maine lobster, although harder to eat because of all the little spikes on it.
Back at the Airbnb, I did some more swimming and watched as this creepy crane kept swallowing down lizards right in our backyard.
AIRBNB
So one of the days we spent the whole day at the Airbnb just swimming and kayaking. The Airbnb came with its own set of kayaks to use that were tied up on its little beach area.
ANGUILLA
So St. Martin is very close to the island of Anguilla. Anguilla is a UK territory so you need a passport to go over there (St Barth is also accessible by a relatively short ferry ride). You can be in a UK, Dutch, then French territory all within an hour if you are going to Anguilla. Anguilla recently opened to tourism, but requires a recent negative covid test as well as your covid vaccination card. Since I had to take a covid test the day before my flight back to the US, I figured I might as well also use it to be able to get into Anguilla. There are actually test kits you can buy where you use an app and a proctor watches you take your test and sends you the results, so you don’t have to go anywhere to take it. So I woke up early to take the test in time to catch the 9:30AM ferry to Anguilla since the next one isn’t until 11:30pm and the last ferry back to St. Martin is at 2:30pm.
I will say it is very pricy to go to Anguilla from St. Martin since you have to pay $30 each way for the ferry as well as $10 departure tax from each port. You have to pay in US dollars in cash as well. You have to line up for customs at each location as well and you get an Anguilla passport stamp. The ferry ride is only about 30 minutes but is a little rough.
It was all very organized and when we got off the ferry and through customs, there is a stand where you can tell them where you want to go and they give you a written slip that contains the price of a taxi which you hand to the driver. The ride was $26 each way to our destination and our driver said he could have given a two hour island tour for $55 but at that point we were running low on cash and wanted to make sure we had enough available for the way back but it would have been nice to do. The taxi driver told us about how the island was really suffering since tourists were banned from the island for so long and that was their main source of income. He showed us the new schools that were recently finished building after Hurricane Irma destroyed the schools in 2018 so the kids were doing their schooling in tents up until recently. The island is completely flat which was very noticeable when sailing up to it especially when comparing it to how mountainous St Martin looks.
Anguilla is known for having some of the most beautiful beaches in the world and I definitely thought that was the case as well. Our taxi driver took us to Shoal Bay Beach where we spent the day at a beach bay called Hank’s, although there were a handful of other beach bars to choose from. Your umbrella and chair rental were free if you ate at the restaurants so we did that. The menu wasn’t very impressive, just sandwiches, but the beach was relatively empty of other people and very laid back. The water was perfect, like in St Martin, with white sand and warm water, although there were more waves than in St Martin. It was a perfect way to spend the last day of the trip. Flights have just started going directly to Anguilla from the US, so I imagine it soon won’t be as peaceful and laidback as when we went. Since you have to have a recent covid test and be vaccinated, that also played into the emptiness of the island.
MARIGOT
The day we departed for the airport, our Airbnb host gave us an extra hour to relax at the house, but we still had some time to kill with an evening flight so we went to Marigot for lunch, which is an area on the way to the airport but still on the French side and also where. Our Airbnb host made a reservation for us at the French restaurant her husband owns, but when we got there, we saw a restaurant right by the water called Le Grand St Martin so decided to go there instead. They actually had a three-course business lunch menu even though it was on a Saturday and that ended up being our cheapest meal of the trip. It was a great spot to spend the end of the trip.
At the airport, our car rental company was waiting for us curbside by Departures so it was nice not having to find a car drop off and shuttle in. The waits through customs and immigration weren’t as bad as when we arrived so we had a pretty quick wait overall. Since the airport is small, there are only a handful of restaurants and gates. We ended up finding a terminal in the back with air condition while the other terminals were more hot and crowded.
St. Martin is the perfect beach destination to visit-- the water is warm and bright blue. The beaches aren’t too crowded. Although it is more on the expensive side, most Caribbean islands seem to be.
