Bahamas 7 Day Itinerary
A taxi from Lynden Pindling International runs a metered $32 for two passengers into downtown Nassau, roughly a 15 minute ride, and that fare surprises people who assume island transport means haggling. It doesn’t, not for this leg anyway. Here’s a week that gets you off New Providence fast, because Nassau is a warm-up act, not the show.
Day 1: Nassau (New Providence Island) Land, settle the taxi fare before you get in (drivers quote up front, add $4 per extra passenger and expect a late-night surcharge), and check into your hotel. Atlantis Paradise Island is worth a half-day for the aquarium and slides even if you’re not staying there, but buy the day-pass online since walk-up prices at the gate run higher. Cable Beach is calmer than Cabbage Beach and better for actually swimming rather than dodging jet ski traffic. In the evening, skip the resort restaurant and head to Arawak Cay, known locally as the Fish Fry, a strip of shacks where conch salad gets sliced to order in front of you. Order it from Twin Brothers or Goldie’s, the two stalls locals argue over, and you’ll understand why bottled hot sauce never tastes the same at home.
Day 2: Nassau and Paradise Island Fort Fincastle and the water tower next to it give a decent view over the harbor without a hard climb. The Pompey Museum tells the slavery and emancipation history most cruise brochures skip entirely, and it’s worth the 45 minutes even if museums aren’t usually your thing. In the afternoon, a speedboat run to Rose Island beats the more crowded Blue Lagoon options if you want an actual quiet stretch of sand rather than a booked-out tour bus schedule. If a Junkanoo performance happens to be running (usually tied to Boxing Day and New Year’s, but some resorts stage smaller shows through the summer for guests), go. Nothing else in the Caribbean sounds like a Junkanoo cowbell line.
Day 3: Exuma (Great Exuma Island) This is where the trip actually starts. Flying beats the ferry here, full stop. The mailboat or scheduled ferry service to Exuma crosses open water and takes several hours in conditions that turn a good number of passengers seasick; a short flight gets you into Georgetown or over to Staniel Cay in well under an hour. Book the swimming pigs excursion to Big Major’s Cay as a half-day tour rather than the full-day version unless you also want Thunderball Grotto and Compass Cay nurse sharks folded into the same outing, since the full-day tours (running roughly $290 to $350 per adult depending on operator and season) cover both. The grotto is a cave system you swim into at low tide, lit from above by a natural skylight, and it’s genuinely one of the best free snorkeling spots in the country once you’ve paid to get there.
Day 4: Exuma and Staniel Cay Book a half-day into the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park rather than treating it as a drive-by stop. It’s a no-take marine reserve, so the fish life is noticeably denser than anywhere near the pigs, and permits are required for anchoring, which most tour operators handle for you. Afternoons are for the quieter beaches south of Staniel Cay Yacht Club, away from the boat traffic that clusters around the pig beach photo-op. For dinner in Georgetown, the seafood shacks along the waterfront do a better cracked conch than anything plated at the resort restaurants, and it costs about a third as much.
Day 5: Harbour Island (Eleuthera) Fly into North Eleuthera and take the short water taxi over to Harbour Island, then rent a golf cart the moment you land since there are no rental cars and barely any paved roads wide enough for them anyway. Kiplin Rentals and Lulu’s both do free delivery and pickup with gas included, and locals will tell you flatly that Kippy at Kiplin is the best guy on the island to deal with if something goes wrong with the cart. Dunmore Town’s pastel cottages and narrow lanes are worth wandering on foot first before you get in the cart. For dinner, The Landing does a genuinely good plate of whatever came off the boat that morning, and it’s a notch cheaper than the more scenic Rock House terrace, which charges for the ocean view as much as the food. Pink Sands Beach lives up to its name best in the late afternoon light, when the coral fragments in the sand actually show their color.
Day 6: Long Island and Dean’s Blue Hole A ferry or short flight gets you to Long Island, home to Dean’s Blue Hole, the second-deepest known saltwater sinkhole on the planet at over 200 meters, and a serious freediving competition site every year. Free snorkeling around the rim is spectacular, but don’t swim toward the center unless you’re trained for it; the drop-off is sudden and the water gets cold fast. Spend the rest of the day on the quieter beaches on the island’s Atlantic side, then eat at whichever beachside spot is grilling that evening, since Long Island doesn’t run on reservations.
Day 7: Return to Nassau and Departure Fly back through North Eleuthera or Georgetown depending on where your loop ends, land in Nassau with a few hours to spare, and use them at the Straw Market for souvenirs rather than the airport gift shop, which marks everything up. Depart from Lynden Pindling.
Things to know
Visitors need a passport valid at least six months beyond arrival; no visa is required for stays under 90 days for most nationalities, including the US, UK, Canada and EU. The Bahamian dollar trades one-to-one with the US dollar and both circulate interchangeably, so don’t bother exchanging currency in advance. English is the official language.
Hurricane season runs June through November, with the sharpest risk window between August and October; if your dates are flexible, December through April gives the most reliable weather and calmer inter-island flights, though it’s also the most expensive and crowded stretch. Shoulder months like May and early June often split the difference well.
Inter-island travel is where people either love or hate this itinerary. Domestic flights on small aircraft (think eight to twelve seats) are common and mostly reliable, but they get bumped by weather more often than a jet would, so build a buffer day if your return flight home is tight. Do not schedule an international departure on the same day as your last inter-island hop.
One local tip: tipping is expected at 15 percent in restaurants same as the US, and it’s rarely already added to the bill outside of larger resorts, so check before you double up.