Guadeloupe

Grande-Terre – which despite its name (meaning 'big land') is far smaller than Basse-Terre – is the most visited island of Guadeloupe. Its south coast, with reef-protected waters and golden-sand beaches, is the country's main resort area.

Vagabonds redaktör Karin Wimark tipsar om vulkanvandring på den franska ön Guadeloupe.

Basse-Terre is Guadeloupe’s trump card. Despite its name meaning 'low land,' it rather confusingly boasts soaring peaks, including the active La Soufrière volcano, and is by far the more dramatic of Guadeloupe's two main islands. Indeed the entire center of Basse-Terre is covered in thick rainforest and makes up the impressive Parc National de la Guadeloupe.

Lying 10km off Guadeloupe, unhurried Terre-de-Haut is the largest of the eight small islands that make up Les Saintes and feels like a slice of southern France transported to the Caribbean. Lots of English is spoken here thanks to a big international sailing scene, and it’s definitely the most cosmopolitan of Guadeloupe’s outlying islands. Divers love its waters for their good visibility and healthy reefs.

Pointe-à-Pitre is a fairly uninviting place – a graffiti-sprayed concrete jungle of art-deco and socialist-style architecture, decaying traditional houses and terrible traffic – but it's the main town on Grande-Terre and, due to its central location between Guadeloupe's two biggest islands, it serves as the de facto capital. It's well worth getting off the beach for half a day to visit, if only to see the superb Mémorial ACTe, a world-class museum dedicated to the history of slavery and colonialism. The first of its kind in the world, Mémorial ACTe has quickly become the closest Guadeloupe has to a national museum and it's an absolute must-see for anyone interested in the history and culture of these islands.