St Lucia / Driving/Parking

Driving is on the left-hand side of the road in St Lucia (with the usual chicanes around the inevitable potholes on the country roads). Seatbelts must be worn, and there are drink-driving regulations. If you have a breakdown, call the car hire company and they will send out a mechanic. If the car hire company does not offer a 24-hour service and you break down outside office hours, then leave the car where it is and report the problem in the morning.

The main roads on St Lucia are generally quite good (there has been a lot of work recently on the west coast road down to Soufrière and beyond to Vieux Fort) and a car is sufficient unless you venture on to minor roads, some of which might only be dirt tracks with huge potholes. With the mountainous terrain all over the island, the minor roads can be extremely steep, including to some of the villas in parts of the Cap Estate. You may prefer to rent a 4-wheel drive Jeep.

Castries is something of a bottle-neck, particularly if you are heading north at rush-hour time, because so many people live in the north of the island. A good bypass has recently been built heading south, so it is no longer necessary to climb all the way up Morne Fortune to leave the town.

Parking

Parking in Castries can be a problem, so it might be easiest to use the multi-storey Conway Business Centre car park which is opposite the market next to the government buildings. Downtown Castries, Derek Walcott Square, is within five minutes by foot. Alternately you can park at Pointe Seraphine, the duty-free centre and cruise ship dock on the opposite side of the bay from the city centre. On days when cruise ships are in port a small ferry links Pointe Seraphine and the Carenage. You get a harbour cruise for a few minutes thrown in. The “ferry” costs US$1 per person each way and runs every few minutes.

Parking on yellow “No Parking” sections will result in a penalty starting at EC$40. Don’t park where the yellow “No Parking” signs are painted on the road or you will be towed away. Collection from police station starts at EC$100. The airport car park costs EC$2.