East meets West in Trinidad, where a merger of cultural and culinary traditions from Africa, India and South America is leavened by British influences and spiced by Latin American, Chinese and Middle Eastern accents. The island hosts the Caribbean’s most famous street party, where costumed crowds march to the lilting melodies of steel pan drums, dance the rhythms of soca and delight in bawdy calypso improvisations.
Leave urban streets behind to discover an island with an equally rich natural heritage. Both Trinidad and its sister island of Tobago encompass a vast range of terrestrial ecosystems that include rainforests, evergreen and coastal woodlands, swamps, marshes, and savannas. Birders are rewarded with more than 400 resident and migratory species; botanical enthusiasts can seek out rare orchids and bromeliads, while divers and snorkelers drift kaleidoscopic reefs nurtured by oceanic currents.
1,981 square miles (5,131 square kilometers)
1.4 million
868
Atlantic Standard Time (AST, UTCā04:00)
Port of Spain
Left
Trinidad and Tobago Dollar (TTD)
115V, 60Hz
Parliamentary republic
English
Piarco International Airport (POS)
