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WELCOME
Introducing Trinidad & Tobago
Whether you're a born-and-bred Trini, an expat, foreign resident, or visitor exploring Trinidad for business or pleasure, Discover T&T can help you get the most out of these diverse, unique, and memorable islands.
We’re at the southern end of the Caribbean island chain, just seven miles off the coast of South America. You can see the mountains of Venezuela clearly from Port of Spain.
Yes — they’re about 21 miles apart, linked by regular air services and daily ferries. They’re quite different in character too, so it’s like getting two destinations for the price of one.
Trinidad is extrovert, lively, full of music and activity and energy. Tobago is more introvert, more peaceful, with wonderful clear water and white-sand beaches. Tobago is where Trinidadians go to relax.
Tobago is quite small, only about thirty miles by ten, with a ridge of forested mountains down its spine, surrounded by cliffs and beaches and fringing reefs. Trinidad is bigger, about 65 miles by 50, though long peninsulas on its western coast add to its breadth. There’s a beautiful mountain range along the northern coast, and lower ranges of hills in the centre and south of the island, with flat or rolling plains between.
About 1.3 million overall, with only 50,000 in Tobago. The language is English. In Trinidad, the population is very mixed, descended mainly from Africa and India – each about 40% of the population – but also from Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, even China, and a few from the original Amerindian settlers. There are some wonderful ethnic mixtures; over 20% of the population identifies as being of mixed ethnicity.
For one thing, it has lots of oil and natural gas, so it is wealthier than its neighbours in the Caribbean, and is not dependent on tourism. For a visitor, there’s more of a sense of being welcomed into somebody else’s life and home, rather than being channelled into special tourist enclaves where you don’t really experience the country itself.
All of that can be found here, especially in Tobago. But there’s more! Caribbean-style Carnival, calypso and soca, the steelband — all this was created here.
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