The mistake people make on Antigua is trying to see all of it. The island is small enough that you can, and beautiful enough that you shouldn’t. Here is a week that balances the beach outside the door with the handful of things that are worth a car or a boat. Swap the days around to suit the weather and the ferry timetable, and cut anything that sounds like effort.
Day 1 · Arrive, and don’t leave the bay
The taxi from the airport is twenty minutes. Drop the bags, find the beach at the end of the path, swim before you unpack. Do the big shop at Epicurean, a few minutes up Friars Hill Road, so the fridge is full for the week. Dinner on the sand at one of the restaurants you can walk to along the bay. Early night; the sunset will still be there tomorrow.
Day 2 · The beach, properly
The day to do nothing. Swim first thing while the water is glass. Umbrella, book, pool in the gardens when the sand gets hot, lunch on the beach at Ana’s. A walk along the bay in the late afternoon to the point and back. Sunset from the terrace. This is the day you came for; give it the whole day.
Day 3 · A boat
Several of the catamaran day sails pick up from Dickenson Bay, so you can walk down the sand in the morning and be on the water by nine. The classic is the sail along the west coast to snorkel on Cades Reef with lunch and rum punch on board; the ambitious one is the full circumnavigation of the island, which takes the day. With children who swim, the Great Bird Island trip from the northeast coast is the one: reef, sandbar, a small climb, nobody else.
Day 4 · English Harbour and Shirley Heights (make this a Sunday)
Drive or taxi south, about 45 minutes, to Nelson’s Dockyard, the Georgian naval yard that’s still a working marina: restored stone warehouses, a museum, superyachts on the quay, and lunch under the trees at one of the inns inside the walls. Swim in the afternoon at Pigeon Point or Galleon Beach. Then up to Shirley Heights by 4 for the Sunday sunset party: steel band, barbecue, reggae, and the view over the harbour as the light goes. Taxi home.
Day 5 · The west coast
Leave after breakfast for the beaches down the west coast, about 30 minutes: Valley Church early, before the day-trippers, then along to Ffryes or Darkwood for a lazy lunch at the beach bar and an empty afternoon. Time it so you finish at Sheer Rocks, the tapas bar on the cliff at Cocobay, for a drink and the sunset over the water. Book the table ahead.
Day 6 · The east, or Barbuda
Two options. The easy one: drive east, about 40 minutes, to wade with the rays at Stingray City in the morning, then on to Devil’s Bridge, the limestone arch where the Atlantic blows through the rock, and Long Bay for a swim in the calm, reef-protected water. The big one: the ferry from St. John’s to Barbuda for the day, ninety minutes each way, for pink-sand beaches with nobody on them and the frigate-bird colony in the lagoon. Book the ferry ahead and check it’s running.
Day 7 · The bay again
Nothing planned. Swim, read, walk, eat lunch somewhere with your feet in the sand. If you want one last thing, Fort James is ten minutes away, a local beach under an old fort with a good Sunday bar; or the Saturday market in St. John’s in the morning for mangoes and hot sauce to take home. Last sunset from the terrace. The airport is twenty minutes.
If you have longer
Stay put. Our weekly and monthly rates exist because the people who stay a month are the ones who come back. Work in the mornings on the terrace, swim at lunch, and let the island come to you.