Accomodation on Antigua

The City View Hotel on Newgate Street (Full size 1280x960.)

If you do just that - go there and look around - you will find that at least during the high season, most places charge very high rates (US$ 100 p.P. being nearly rock bottom for basic hotel accomodation), and it's not much better at other times because then many tourist places will be closed and the remaining clientele are business travellers who can be ripped off anyway. There are no "guest houses", "motels", "hostels" or "bed & breakfast" places, or at least they are few and far between.

A reader noted that he stayed for around US$ 45 a night at Murphy's Place, All Saints Road, in St. John's, tel. 268-461-1183, where there was no breakfast but a kitchenette. Another reader managed to find accomodation at US$ 55 at The Catamaran while shopping around on the web (see Mike Werner's Page) - so my original view was probably more pessimistic than necessary!

Yet another reader told me that he stayed at the Cappucino Lodge, located in the city centre, and found the rooms to be simple but clean, with en-suite for US$ 40 per (double) room and night, during high season in early 2006.

If you intend to stay on Antigua for a longer period of time, I'd try to book ahead a few weeks in one of the mass tourist places (e.g. the Royal Antiguan Hotel - I saw offers as low as US$ 600 for two weeks there, and that included a return flight from Europe) and then try to arrange something locally. There is of course a market for short- to medium-term rentals but it lacks transparency (expecially for foreigners). You'd be best advised to make the acquaintance of a few local people and go the "word of mouth" road from there.

Links

www.liveinantigua.com (long term rentals)

also check the general links at the end of my resources page.