Guadeloupe

Hi everyone:

I'm considering a trip to Guadeloupe for my March trip in 2024. Thoughts? General pros or cons?

Land based or on a boat?

Have only done boat based trips and love Deshaies on the west coast. Beautiful little town and great anchorage, home of the BBC TV series 'Death in Paradise'. Also, if on a boat, Isles des Saintes off the southern tip of Guadeloupe is one of my favourite places on earth.

Some knowledge of French is a help but, as everywhere in the world, if you want to buy something and they want to sell something, you'll get by. Google translate can of course help enormously.

I'd be land based. Considering spending about 7-8 days there, but would love some personal reports from folks who've been!

It has been many years since we have been to Guadeloupe, but we truly loved it! You may be able to glean some tidbits.

Trip Report Guadeloupe - 2007

Thanks for this!

I've spent months on Guadeloupe in recent years. Most of it anchored in Deshaies or Pointe a Pitre or in the Iles des Saintes. I've got a slight advantage in that I speak French, but I think that English is understood more on Guadeloupe than on Martinique.

Anyway, despite an impressive highway system, distances and travel times are never short when moving about. I usually rent a car and recommend that you do so as well. I spend most of my time on Basse Terre (the part of the butterfly with the mountains, despite the name). If you enjoy that terrain and hiking, you are going to be in for a treat.

Before going into detail, I'd like to ask where on the island you will be staying and if you are looking for beaches, adventures, hiking, tours (e.g. Rum/Sugar). Will you have a car?

Wait -- German, English, Japanese, and French too? Got any more Arnd? (not counting programming languages )

Dan

@DanS - you've got 'em all. As part of my youth I was in school in Quebec (English school, I had to wear a school uniform suit/tie) when the Partie Quebecois enacted a law stating that unless both parents were native English speakers the kids had to be schooled in French. So for a while I was in the same school, but my classes (except, unsurprisingly, English) were all in French. Some purists might argue that Quebecois is not French, though...