The same trip in a yellow-plated taxi costs $18. The same trip in a private hire car costs $55. The private car is the $55 option and it is for people who have already decided that their holiday is worth more than their money.
Barbados on a Shoestring
A Barbados dollar is pegged two to one to the US dollar, so Bds $2 buys US $1 and the conversion never moves. That peg is the first thing to understand, because it means every price you hear quoted on the island can be halved in your head without a calculator and without a currency app. Everything below is in US dollars. The second thing to understand is that Barbados has a reputation for being expensive, and the reputation is half right: the west coast resorts are priced for people who are not reading this, and the south and east coasts are priced for people who are.
The $18 Seat and the $55 Seat
Cheap seats on the island come in three tiers, and the spread between them is the whole game. A shared minibus, called a ZR, runs fixed routes for Bds $3.50, which is $1.75. The same trip in a yellow-plated taxi costs $18. The same trip in a private hire car costs $55. Those are three different versions of the same journey. The ZR is a Toyota Hiace with a sound system, a driver who knows every pothole, and a conductor who hangs out the sliding door shouting the destination. You will be sharing it with schoolchildren and market vendors. It stops wherever someone bangs on the roof. That is the $1.75 option.
The taxi is the $18 option. It is metered in theory and negotiated in practice, and the drivers at the airport know exactly what a tourist will pay. The private car is the $55 option and it is for people who have already decided that their holiday is worth more than their money. All three get you to the same beach.
Sleeping South
Accommodation in the south coast towns of St. Lawrence Gap, Worthing and Hastings splits into three price bands. A dorm bed in a hostel runs $18 to $30 a night. A basic guesthouse double, fan-cooled, shared bathroom, runs $55 to $80. A mid-range hotel with air conditioning and a pool runs $185 and up. The gap between the dorm and the mid-range is $155 a night, which is your food and transport budget for a week. The guesthouse band is the one worth aiming at: $55 to $80 buys you a room with a bed and a door, and in Barbados the room is where you sleep, not where you sit.
The east coast, around Bathsheba and Cattlewash, is cheaper again and quieter. A guesthouse room there runs $40 to $65. The surf is better. The buses are fewer. The trade-off is real: fewer places to eat, and the ones that exist close earlier.
Eating for $12 a Day
A flying fish cutter — the national sandwich, a fried fish fillet in a salt bread roll with pepper sauce — costs $4 to $6 from a roadside stand. A plate of rice and peas with stewed chicken from a rum shop runs $8 to $12. A roti from a takeaway window costs $5. A supermarket run for bread, cheese, fruit and a bottle of water comes to about $12 and covers a day of self-catering. A sit-down dinner at a restaurant in St. Lawrence Gap starts at $25 a head and climbs.
The arithmetic is simple. Three rum shop meals a day costs $24 to $36. One supermarket shop and two rum shop meals costs $20 to $24. One restaurant dinner and two cutters costs $33 to $37. The rum shop is the cheapest way to eat well, and it is also the only place where you will be eating next to people who live there. A bottle of Banks beer in a rum shop costs $2. In a beach bar it costs $5. In a hotel it costs $8. The beer is the same beer.
What Is Actually Free
The beaches cost nothing and they are the reason you came. Accra Beach on the south coast has a reef about 30 metres out and the water inside it is calm enough for weak swimmers. Pebbles Beach, next door, is where the racehorses from the Garrison Savannah are swum in the early morning. Bathsheba on the east coast has the surf break and the rock formations and no entrance fee.
The Boardwalk at Hastings runs for about 1.6 kilometres along the water and is free to walk at any hour. The Garrison Savannah, a former British military parade ground, is free to walk on any day that is not race day. The Andromeda Botanic Gardens charge $12. The Harrison’s Cave tour charges $30. Both are worth the money and neither is free, and it is worth knowing the difference before you build a day around them.
The Oistins Fish Fry on a Friday night is free to attend and loud and crowded and full of locals and tourists in roughly equal measure. The fish there costs $10 to $15 a plate. The music costs nothing.
The $120 Week
Add it up for a budget traveller moving between the south and east coasts. Seven nights in a dorm at $18 is $126. Seven nights in a basic guesthouse double at $55 is $385. Food at $20 a day for seven days is $140. Transport on ZRs at $1.75 a ride, four rides a day, is $49 for the week. Entry to one paid attraction is $12. The total for the dorm version is $327 for a week. The total for the guesthouse version is $586.
The difference between them is $259, which is a flight. The dorm version costs $47 a day. The guesthouse version costs $84 a day. Neither is the Barbados of the brochures, and both are the Barbados that exists.
The Practical Edge
The wet season runs from June to November and the dry season from December to May, and the prices move with them. A guesthouse room that costs $80 in February costs $55 in September. The rain in the wet season comes in short bursts and the sun comes back, and the island is greener and emptier and the same size.
The buses run from about 5am to 11pm on the main routes and less often on the east coast. A ZR fare is $1.75 whether you ride one stop or the full route. The blue government buses charge $2. The yellow-plated taxis at the airport have a published fare board and the ZR stand is a five-minute walk from arrivals, past the taxi rank, and nobody will point you toward it.
Bring a refillable bottle. Tap water is drinkable on the island and a litre bottle in a shop costs $2.50, which over a week is $17.50 for water you could have had for nothing. Bring a padlock for the dorm locker and a light rain jacket for the wet season and a European plug adapter, because the island runs on British-style three-pin sockets and an adapter bought on the island costs $8.
The point of Barbados on a budget is not to pretend you are roughing it. It is to notice that the $1.75 bus and the $18 taxi arrive at the same beach at the same time, that the $4 cutter and the $25 dinner are both made of fish, and that the difference between a $327 week and a $586 week is a decision you make at the guesthouse door, not at the airport. The island does not care which one you choose. It is 21 miles long and 14 miles wide and the sea is free on every side of it.
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