THE BAHAMAS · 700 ISLANDS
The bluest water you’ll ever swim in.
Swimming pigs and turtle reefs, Nassau’s forts and rum, Exuma sandbars and the pink-sand beaches of the Out Islands. The whole archipelago, one island at a time.
Only in the Bahamas
Three swims you can’t take anywhere else.
Every warm-water island has a snorkel trip and a boat day. Only here do the pigs swim out to meet you, the turtles graze in waist-deep shallows, and the sandbars rise from water this bright. Build the trip around these.
Big Major Cay
Swim With the Pigs
The famous pigs paddle straight off the sand to meet your boat, then float beside you in water so clear it barely looks real. No pen, no fence, no other beach on earth does this. It is the one photo every Bahamas trip comes home with.
- 1 Nassau: 3 Islands Tour, Snorkel, Pig Beach, Turtles & Lunch
- 2 Swimming Pigs and Private Beach Club Escape
- 3 Sandy Toes The Original Rose Island and Swimming Pigs Tour
Mask on
Turtles & Living Reef
Green turtles graze the seagrass in chest-deep shallows while nurse sharks cruise the reef edge below you. Warm, calm, clear to twenty metres and gentle enough that first-timers are swimming with sea turtles within minutes.
- 1 Nassau: Pigs, Snorkel, Turtles, Lunch, Private Beach Club
- 2 Nassau: Snorkeling, Pig Beach, Swim with Turtles, and Lunch
- 3 Nassau: Swimming Pigs And Snorkel With Turtles
By powerboat
The Exuma Cays
Three hundred and sixty-five cays scattered across electric-blue shallows. Stand on a sandbar that only exists at low tide, snorkel the James Bond cave at Thunderball Grotto, and hand-feed the swimming iguanas of Allen’s Cay — a day you cannot build anywhere else.
- 1 Exuma Elite Escape: Luxury Fly-In Pig Beach Adventure – 7 Stops
- 2 Exuma Island Hopping Swimming Pigs Tour with Lunch from Nassau
- 3 Exuma Powerboat Tour from Nassau with Swimming Pigs
Plan the trip
Which islands? How many days?
There are seven hundred of them, but nearly every trip is built on one of three bases. Here is who each one suits and roughly how long to give it.
Nassau & Paradise Island
Where almost every trip starts. Atlantis and Cable Beach, the forts and straw market of old Nassau, and a fast boat each morning out to the pigs, Rose Island or Blue Lagoon. The simplest way to see a lot in a few days.
See the tours →The Exumas
The Bahamas of the postcards. Fly in to Staniel Cay or George Town for the swimming pigs, Thunderball Grotto, swimming iguanas and sandbars that surface at low tide. The most jaw-dropping water in the country.
See the tours →Grand Bahama & the Out Islands
For a second or third trip. Grand Bahama’s reefs and national parks, the pink sand of Eleuthera and Harbour Island, Andros for bonefishing and blue holes. Fewer crowds, far more room to breathe.
See the tours →Start here
If you only book one, book this.
More travellers book this than anything else in the islands — a safe first move while you plan the rest of the trip.
The classics
The Bahamas’ Most Popular Tours
Swimming pigs, reef and turtle snorkels, Nassau highlights and the Exuma cays. The trips most travellers come for.
The Exumas
Where the water turns electric.
A chain of cays south of Nassau where the shallows glow a blue that cameras never quite believe. This is swimming-pig country — Big Major Cay, the nurse sharks of Compass Cay, and the sunken plane and grotto made famous by Bond.
Most people see it on a fly-in or powerboat day from Nassau. Give it longer if you can: a few nights on Staniel Cay or Great Exuma is the trip people come home talking about.
By island
Pick an island.
Each one is its own day. Nassau for the forts and the food. Paradise Island for Atlantis and the beach. Rose Island for a quiet swim. The Exumas for the pigs and the sandbars.
By experience
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Swimming pigs if you want the photo. Snorkelling if you want the reef and the turtles. A powerboat if you want range, a catamaran if you want the sail. Jet skis, ATV trails, forts, rum and conch, and the rest.
Beach days
The private-beach escapes.
Rose Island, Pearl Island and Blue Lagoon — calm, shallow and postcard-clear, all a short boat ride off Nassau. Three to book for the days you just want sand and easy water.
Nassau & New Providence
Conch, colour and colonial forts.
The capital is where most trips land, and it earns a day of its own. Climb the Queen’s Staircase to Fort Fincastle, wander the straw market off Bay Street, then eat conch salad cut to order at Arawak Cay while the rum flows.
Out front, Paradise Island and Atlantis; out back, a fast boat to the pigs, the reef or a quiet cay. The easiest base in the islands, and a lot more than a stopover.
Out on the water
Sails, cruises and sunsets.
A catamaran out to a snorkel reef, a powerboat to the cays, a sunset cruise with rum in hand. Three ways to spend the part of the day the Bahamas does best.
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