The Grenadines gateway — 32 islands of sailing paradise, and the Pirates set was real
Kingstown is the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines — a 32-island nation stretching south towards Grenada that is arguably the Caribbean's finest sailing destination. The main island has the only large tract of rainforest left in the eastern Caribbean and La Soufrière volcano, which last erupted in 2021. The Grenadines (Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Tobago Cays, Union Island) are the playground of billionaires and serious sailors — the Pirates of the Caribbean scenes at Wallilabou Bay were filmed on the real coast.
St. Vincent was the last Caribbean island to be brought under European control — the Black Caribs (Garifuna), descendants of Carib peoples who had incorporated African escaped slaves into their communities, resisted British colonization until 1797 when the entire Garifuna population of approximately 5,000 was forcibly deported to Honduras (where their descendants, the Garinagu, still live). The 2021 eruption of La Soufrière — the most powerful in the eastern Caribbean in decades — displaced 16,000 people from the island's northern third.