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Young Island, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Things to Do in Young Island

Things to Do in Young Island

Young Island, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Complete Travel Guide

Young Island drifts only two hundred yards south of Kingstown. Yet the five-minute launch hop drops you into a gentler century. You land on a crescent of honey sand. Palm fronds clack. Surf hisses over the reef. Trade wind drifts in, laced with frangipani and a wisp of charcoal from the beach grill. The water color hits first: an almost fake turquoise that flips to cobalt where the shelf falls away. The whole place covers twenty-five acres. Ten minutes of walking and you've circled it. Still, it never feels tight. You learn every curve, then wake to a hermit crab hauling a soda cap past your veranda. Evening starts with the bartender shaking rum punches. Bats flicker above a mango-purple sky. No village. No traffic. Just twenty-two cottages on the slope and one open-air restaurant whose boards creak like an old brig. Tree frogs pan across the night. Dawn brings the smell of strong St Vincent cocoa tea. It's the private-island dream without Mustique prices. Staff greet you by name before the dinghy is tied. Young Island feels less like a resort, more like a generous friend's beach house you mislaid in the Grenadines.

Top Things to Do in Young Island

Sunrise paddle to Rat Island

Borrow a glass-bottom kayak at dawn. Paddle north. Stingrays glide like shadows under the hull. Kingstown's tin roofs blush pink behind you. Frigate birds wheel. Minibuses growl up the mainland hills.

Booking Tip: Kayaks rest on the sand. No reservation. Launch at 6 a.m. The channel is glass. Cruise crowds are still asleep.

Snorkel the southern reef finger

Enter off the rocky point. Sea grass sways like green spaghetti. Parrotfish crunch coral. A hawksbill studies its reflection in your mask. The drop is twelve feet. Hover and feel the thermocline flip.

Booking Tip: Pack prescription masks. The resort lends fins. But sizes run large and stock is thin.

Rum-flight at the beach bar

The bartender sets five local pours along the bar. Sugarcane stills from Georgetown to the windward coast. Chipped enamel cups clink like cowbells. You sip grassy white overproof, then a five-year molasses bomb that tastes of burnt banana and rainy-season soil.

Booking Tip: Request the off-menu dusk special at 5:30 p.m. They spike the rum with fresh coconut water. It costs less than two singles. You keep the cup.

Short-ferry dinner run to Kingstown

The hotel boat leaves you at the market jetty. Diesel meets nutmeg in the air. Ten minutes later you're in a rum shop, jackfish and breadfruit steaming while dominoes slap and calypso crackles from an old box.

Booking Tip: Last hotel ride back is 10 p.m. sharp. Miss it and a water-taxi runs $US, more than dinner. Bring cash. Most joints still scowl at plastic.

Hike the island's spine trail

A narrow track climbs past French cannonballs left a century ago. Sunlight breaks over century plants spiking the ridge. From the top the Tobago Cays glitter like cut glass to the south. Rainforest walls the leeward side of St Vincent.

Booking Tip: Start the climb before 9 a.m. Sun is low. Mozzies are slow. The walk is twenty minutes. Flip-flops slide on dew-slick grass.

Getting There

Everyone arrives the same way. The resort's white tender meets you below the Grenadine House hotel jetty in Kingstown. Flights land at Argyle airport an hour east. A taxi to the jetty runs mid-range for St Vincent and takes forty twisty coastal minutes. Coming by ferry from Bequia or Union, ask the captain to radio ahead. In calm seas they'll divert five minutes to pick you off the Young Island mooring.

Getting Around

On Young Island your feet are the only transport. Any cottage to the bar is a five-minute stroll. Staff shuttle bags on quiet golf carts that whir along crushed-coral paths. Need cash or souvenirs? The hotel boat leaves on the hour until 6 p.m. After that it's a special-run fare added to your room tab.

Where to Stay

Pick cottages 1-6 on Coconut Beach. Shortest walk to breakfast. Loudest lullaby of waves.

Choose hillside rooms 15-18. Wake to bananaquits tapping glass. View swallows the Grenadine channel.

Book beachfront suite 22. Private hammock time. Direct sand access. Bar playlist drifts until last call.

Garden rooms hide behind the croton hedge. Quieter. Shadier. Cooler at noon.

Take the Pillared House up top when traveling with another couple. Wraparound veranda. Space for late-night dominoes without complaints.

Day-trip trick: negotiate a beach-day pass if you're staying on the mainland. Loungers and one meal included. Cheaper than a full night.

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Food & Dining

Meals happen in one open-walled pavilion unless you hop the boat to town. Breakfast brings johnnycakes still steaming from the griddle and local guava jelly that tastes like Christmas spices. Lunch leans light, perhaps a flying-fish cutter drenched in tamarind sauce. Dinner menus shift nightly but always include a plantain-crusted catch pulled from the channel that morning. Tired of resort pacing? The ten-minute crossing lands you at Dockside Fish Market on Bay Street. There, lobster tails grill over coconut husk and cost markedly less than on-island. Back on Young Island, the bar does a creditable rum-based tiramisu that soaks up whatever the bartender poured last. Save room. Even after a heavy plate of callaloo soup and breadfruit chips, it disappears fast.

When to Visit

December to April serves up the driest breeze and the calmest ferry rides. You'll share the sand with yacht crews and winter escapists. May and June still sparkle before hurricane chatter starts. The sea is bathtub-warm and room rates slide down a notch. July-November brings brief, heavy showers that rinse the humidity off the hills. The island empties. The bartender has time to invent off-menu drinks. You might lose a day to choppy crossings if a tropical wave rolls through.

Insider Tips

Pack reef-safe sunscreen in checked luggage. The island shop stocks only a generic brand that smells like cough syrup and costs twice Kingstown prices.
Bring a dry bag for phone/cash on the tender. Spray kicks up when the wind opposes the tide. The crew hand you off to the jetty ladder.
If you're a light sleeper, request cottage 11 or higher. The generator hum sits lower on the slope. Tree frogs provide the only soundtrack after 10 p.m.

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Itineraries

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Getting Around

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Where to Stay

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