--- title: "Follow the King Through the Caribbean: Nassau, Georgetown and St John's in Nine Days" description: Follow King Charles III's nine-day Caribbean tour stop by stop, from Bonefish Pond and Junkanoo in Nassau to Georgetown's seawall and St John's, Antigua. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-04T11:00:00.050Z updated: 2026-11-04T11:00:00.062Z canonical: https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/king-charles-caribbean-route-nassau-georgetown-antigua image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-34167075.webp categories: Destinations content_type: Guide region: Caribbean, Latin America publication: Rich Travel Magazine schema_type: Article about: - type: Person name: King Charles III --- On Tuesday 27th October, King Charles III stepped off his aircraft at Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau in a light grey suit and sunglasses, and walked past a guard of honour in white tunics and pith helmets. Nine days later, on Wednesday 4th November, he leaves Antigua. In between he crossed three countries that most travellers would never think to combine: the low, luminous islands of the Bahamas, the rainforest republic of Guyana on the shoulder of South America, and the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. His route works as an itinerary in its own right. Each stop pairs a capital with a landscape, a festival with a shaded garden, and almost everything he saw can be visited by anyone with a ticket and a free week. ## Nassau, where the tour began The King's first evening took him to Clifford Park, the open ground where the Bahamas declared its independence in July 1973. He had stood there before, as a 24-year-old Prince of Wales delivering his mother's message to the new nation, and this time he [spoke to a youth rally](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/king-charles-caribbean-tour-partnerships), opening with a few words of Bahamian dialect. For visitors the park is a reminder that Nassau is a city of public spaces as much as cruise piers, and that its history is best read on foot. The Bahamas is a country of water more than land. The King noted in his speech that 90 per cent of its territory sits less than two metres above the sea, which explains the colours that first-time visitors struggle to describe: the turquoise of the shallows, the deep navy of the channels and the pale gold of the sandbanks between them. ## Bonefish Pond and the mangroves of New Providence On his second morning the King drove to Bonefish Pond National Park on the south coast of New Providence, one of 33 parks managed by the Bahamas National Trust, of which he is royal patron. The park covers 1,235 acres of mangrove forest, tidal creeks and seagrass, and it began life as a cleared rubbish dump before the Trust restored it. A boardwalk now runs out over the water, and the shallows shelter juvenile grouper, snapper and the bonefish that give the place its name. The Trust says more than 2,000 schoolchildren have learned about the coast here. The King watched pupils search the water for spiny lobster and shrimp, and remembered his own early visits to the island of Eleuthera in the 1970s: 'I remember years ago when I used to go to Eleuthera, the creeks there were full of them.' Before leaving he planted a silver buttonwood, a mangrove native to the Bahamian shore. Travellers who want to follow him further can take a fast ferry from Nassau to Eleuthera, a long, thin island of pink-sand beaches and small settlements that feels a world away from the capital. ## Junkanoo in downtown Nassau The afternoon belonged to music. A Junkanoo parade filled Parliament Square and Rawson Square, the heart of old Nassau, with its pink colonial government buildings and the statue of Queen Victoria, and the King shook a pair of traditional cowbells alongside the dancers. He lingered at the fruit and vegetable stands and stopped at a street food stall to admire the traditional dishes. Junkanoo has its roots in the 17th and 18th centuries, when enslaved Africans in the Bahamas were allowed time off at Christmas to gather, drum, dance and wear handmade masks. It is now the country's great festival. The two main parades in Nassau begin at 2am on Boxing Day, 26th December, and on New Year's Day, 1st January, and run along Bay Street until sunrise, with groups competing in costumes that take months to build. Outside the season, the Educulture Junkanoo Museum in Nassau shows the history and past costumes, and summer Junkanoo festivals are held on several islands each July. ## Georgetown's gardens, seawall and thatched benab On Thursday 29th October the King flew south to Guyana, landing at Cheddi Jagan International Airport for a two-day state visit marking 60 years since the country's independence in 1966. It was his first visit since February 2000. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America, and most of its land lies under rainforest, threaded by vast brown rivers. Georgetown, the capital, is a city of white wooden buildings, canals and broad avenues laid out by Dutch and British engineers. That first evening the King attended a reception in the gardens of State House, the president's official residence, where he was handed a premium rum distilled in his honour. He took a sip and pronounced it 'very good'. Guyana's Demerara rums, named after the river that runs through the capital, have a long reputation well beyond the Caribbean, and a glass is a fitting first taste of the country. The next day he walked through the Promenade Gardens, a shaded green space in the city centre, and stood on the edge of neighbouring Independence Park, where a plaque remembers the men executed after the Demerara Rebellion of 1823, one of the largest uprisings of the colonial era. Schoolchildren were playing sport on the old parade ground as he listened to the story, and the park is worth a few minutes of any visitor's time. He then visited the Umana Yana on High Street in Kingston, a vast traditional benab, the thatched meeting house of Guyana's Indigenous peoples, now used for cultural and national events. There he met leaders of the National Toshaos Council, who represent Indigenous villages, and received a necklace, maracas and an archer's bow and arrow. He told a biodiversity conference that 'nature has the best solutions to everything today'. His last stop in Guyana was the Kingston Seawall. Much of Georgetown lies below the level of the high tide, and the long sea defence that protects it doubles as a promenade along the Atlantic. The King walked a stretch of it and studied the coast through binoculars, which is as good a way as any to end a day in the city. ## St John's and the end of the journey The King reached Antigua on the evening of Friday 30th October, landing at V. C. Bird International Airport in time for the 45th anniversary of independence on Sunday 1st November. Antigua and Barbuda is the smallest country ever to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which brought leaders of 56 nations to St John's this week. The Queen joined him that Sunday for her first official visit to the islands, and they attended a church service in St John's with Sir Viv Richards, the West Indies batting great and the summit's envoy. Later, at the independence celebrations, a sudden tropical downpour sent the royal party running for cover, a reminder that Caribbean showers arrive fast and leave just as quickly. On Monday 2nd November the couple toured Government House in St John's, whose restoration began in 2017 and was completed this year; they unveiled a plaque to mark it. The Government House Museum tells the islands' history through objects that range from Wedgwood medallions made for the abolition movement to a conch shell once blown to summon workers and a Warri board, the African strategy game still played in Antigua. Chef Nigel Joseph cooked fungee and pepperpot, the national dish, and the King and Queen met young builders trained by The King's Foundation, who had built a wooden pavilion in the grounds. On Tuesday 3rd November the King opened the summit at the National Performing Arts Centre in St John's. For travellers, the capital's pastel streets, its cathedral on the hill and its harbour make a natural base, with the beaches the islanders like to number at one for every day of the year never more than a short drive away. ## Planning your own route [Following the King's itinerary](https://richtravelmagazine.com/article/the-king-s-path-scotland-s-royal-travel-itinerary) means three flights and three very different places, so allow at least a few days in each. The Atlantic hurricane season runs until 30th November, and most visitors aim for the drier months that follow. If you can be in Nassau for Boxing Day or New Year's Day, the Junkanoo parades on Bay Street are worth the 2am start. Georgetown is the least visited of the three capitals and the most rewarding to explore slowly. British Airways has flown to Guyana from London Gatwick via Saint Lucia, so check the current timetable when you plan. In Antigua, Government House and its museum show the islands' story in a single visit, and a morning in St John's leaves the afternoon free for the sea.