Things to Do in Grenada

Grenada earns its Spice Isle nickname within minutes of landing - the air carries nutmeg and cinnamon as you drive the winding roads through the interior, past hillsides thick with cocoa, clove, and mace trees. Start in St. George's, widely considered the prettiest harbor town in the Caribbean, where pastel warehouses and red-roofed churches climb the hills around the Carenage, the inner harbor where fishing boats and yachts bob side by side.

Walk up to Fort George for a panoramic view of the harbor and the coast stretching north, then descend through the narrow streets to the spice market near the cruise terminal, where vendors sell fresh nutmeg, turmeric, cinnamon sticks, and nutmeg jelly by the bag. The drive from St. George's into the mountainous interior takes you through a landscape that feels more like Southeast Asia than the Caribbean - Grand Etang National Park sits in the crater of an extinct volcano at 1,900 feet, with a lake-filled crater and trails ranging from a 15-minute loop to the challenging three-hour hike up Mount Qua Qua, which rewards with views across the entire island.

The Concord Falls are a series of three waterfalls accessible via a trail through nutmeg and cocoa plantations - most visitors stop at the first, easily reached cascade, but the 45-minute hike to the upper falls at Au Coin is where you can swim in a deep pool beneath a 65-foot drop in near solitude. On the coast, Grand Anse Beach stretches for two miles of soft white sand along the southwest shore, consistently ranked among the Caribbean's best, with calm water, no vendors hassling you, and a handful of beach bars rather than a wall of high-rises. Underwater, Grenada's signature attraction is the Moliniere Underwater Sculpture Park, installed by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor in 2006 - a collection of concrete human figures on the seafloor at shallow depth, now encrusted with coral and sponges, accessible by snorkel or a short boat ride from Grand Anse.

Serious divers should head to the Bianca C wreck, a 600-foot Italian cruise liner that sank in 1961 and now sits upright in 165 feet of water, the largest accessible shipwreck in the Caribbean. For a cultural deep dive, visit Belmont Estate in the parish of St. Patrick, a working organic plantation where you can trace chocolate from cacao pod to finished bar, tour the nutmeg and spice gardens, and eat a Grenadian lunch cooked in an outdoor kitchen.