The Caribbean's Best-Kept Secret — Tobago's Main Ridge Forest Reserve is the oldest protected rainforest in the Western Hemisphere (since 1776), Pigeon Point Beach has the most photographed jetty in the Caribbean, and the Buccoo Reef is one of the only reefs in the world accessible by glass-bottom boat for non-swimmers
Tobago is the smaller island of Trinidad and Tobago — a 300 km² island in the southeastern Caribbean that is less well-known than its neighbour, making it one of the most unspoilt islands in the region. The Main Ridge Forest Reserve (established 1776) is the oldest legally protected forest reserve in the Western Hemisphere — 250 years of conservation has preserved primary rainforest across the central spine. Pigeon Point Heritage Park, with its iconic thatched-roof jetty over turquoise shallows, is one of the most photographed beach scenes in the Caribbean. Buccoo Reef in shallow Buccoo Bay i…
Tobago was one of the most fought-over islands in the colonial Caribbean — it changed hands between England, France, Holland, and the Duchy of Courland (present-day Latvia) 22 times between 1626 and 1814 before Britain finally secured it. The Duke of Courland's attempts to establish a Baltic colony here (1654) are a genuinely strange footnote in Caribbean history. After British emancipation (1838), most formerly enslaved people left the plantations and the economy declined. Tobago was federated with Trinidad in 1888 and became independent as Trinidad and Tobago in 1962.