9 Things you should experience in Barbados

Based on my recent trip to Barbados, here are 9 things, you should definitely do when you visit the island:

1. Visit Rihanna Drive – You can see the street and home she grew up on.

2. Walk around central Bridgetown – walking around the downtown area, you can see some local architecture, the parliament of Barbados, do some shopping, eat some street food, and just see how locals go about their day.

3. Go to the Oisten’s fish fry (you have to eat at Pat’s) – This is an area of Bridgetown that has a lot of shacks serving local fish. On Friday night, they have a huge party. There’s tons of people, good music, performance, and lots of food choices.

Although there are a lot of options, a local told us to try Pat’s, and I am so glad we did. Its some of the best food we had the whole time we were in Barbados. However, be prepared to wait in line. If you don’t want to wait, go on a day other than Friday is what I was told. Get your fish grilled, and choose one main and one side.

We had the mahi and swordfish. The mahi was definitely the best. Good sauce, nice grilled flavor, and meaty.

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4. Go to a local bar and listen to some live Reggae. Every night, there is a live performance at a different bar. We went to Socialites on a Friday night. Ask your hotel for a schedule.

5. Check out the Animal Cave – Barbados is a small island and you can easily drive around from one side to the other in less than an hour. Animal cave is definitely worth checking out. You will pay a fee and then a guide will take you down some steps to see the cave. Make sure to bring a bathing suit if you want to take a dip in one of the pools.

6. Go Beach Hopping – Obviously, the island is full of beaches. After animal cave, we made a list of all the beaches and tried to check out as many as possible. The one below was called Bathsheba Park:

7. See race horses swimming – head to Pebbles beach around 6-7AM to see trainers bringing their race horses down to the beach to bathe and swim. It is an amazing sight. You can get in the water and take pics or swim with them too. There is parking and you basically go to the pier near the Radisson Hotel to see this happening. Some people say its everyday while others say its Sunday only. To be safe, we went on Sunday.

8. Eat local food – I wish we had tried more of the local food, but we did check out a few locations for the famous roti wraps. Basically, chicken and potato curry wrapped in a roti. One of the best we had was a place called Chefette. You will see them all around the island. Its the local “Mcdonalds”. We tried the roti wrap, fried chicken and fries. The wrap and chicken were good. I would skip the fries. They are a bit soggy and underseasoned.

I also tried some street food including this patty with beef which reminded me of a Jamaican patty, but the Jamaican version is much better.

9. Go snorkeling – I really enjoyed snorkeling at the barge shipwreck near Sandy Lane beach. There were tons of fish at the wreck.

Enjoy your trip!