Time difference: GMT - 4.
Currency: Trinidad and Tobago Dollar (although US Dollars are accepted).
Language: English
Population: Approximately 61000.
Visa information: Holders of a British passport can stay for 90 days without a visa.
There are two flights per week to Tobago from London Gatwick with British Airways. The flight time is approximately 11 hours including a short stop in Antigua.Outbound flights leave the UK in the morning and land in Tobago late afternoon, while return flights leave Tobago in the evening and land in the UK the following morning.
Visitors to Antigua can easily get around by taxi or local bus, the latter being cheap by somewhat unreliable. It is also possible to hire a car. Driving is on the left and roads might be bumpy with few street signs.
Tobago was originally inhabited by Caribs before being sighted by Christopher Columbus in 14988. The island has been fought over by many different nations since then, and is thought to have changed hands around 30 times.
During the centuries that followed, the Spanish, Dutch, British, French and Courlanders (from modern-day Latvia) all attempted to claim Tobago before it was finally ceded to the British in 1814. By this time, there were numerous plantations producing sugar, tobacco, cotton and other crops with the help of African slaves which were freed about 30 years later. The sugar industry ended by the late 1800s which slowed the island’s economy, leading to Tobago being annexed to neighbouring, larger island of Trinidad in 1889 to create a new crown colony.
The nation of Trinidad and Tobago achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1962 and became a republic in 1976, remaining a part of the Commonwealth.
