Saint Martin / Sint Maarten beach travel guide, places to stay and one hike!
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- First time visiting St Martin/Sint Maarten? Look no further for a guide to the best beaches as well as some local shopping gems and where to stay on the island.
LINKS:
If you enjoyed this video, have a look at our trip to Eleuthera, Bahamas: • How we spent 8 days ex...
Where we stayed:
The Horny Toad Guesthouse, Simpson Bay thtgh.com
AirBnB, Les Terres Basses : bit.ly/3CtfPsT
Dawn Beach Club - you can rent directly from timeshare owners on redweek.com or try reaching out to owners on the DBC Owners Facebook group page.
Car rental - hertz.sxmrentacar.com We got a great rate booking thru the local Hertz website. Liability insurance is included in their prices (USD) and service was great. Their cars are in good shape, some may not be brand new but we did not have any issues.
Our favourite lightweight beach umbrella that fits in your suitcase and save on beach rentals - Canada: www.portabrella.ca/
U.S: www.shadeusa.com/product/port...
Instagram / yyzwanderers to get real time updates on where we’re at.
CHAPTERS
00:00 - Intro to Saint Martin / Sint Maarten
00:51 - Map of the island
01:27 - Horny Toad Guesthouse
02:40 - Map of beaches on the island
02:59 - Simpson Bay Beach
04:10 - Maho Beach
05:15 - Mullet Bay Beach
07:55 - Philipsburg
08:33 - Little Bay Beach
09:03 - Fort Amsterdam
09:45 - Dawn Beach Club
10:05 - Dawn Beach
10:41 - Dawn Beach Club accommodations
11:33 - Le Galion Beach
12:06 - Rotary Lookout
13:07 - Anse Marcel Beach
13:56 - Petites Cayes hike
14:26 - Rhum Ma Doudou shop
14:54 - Grand Case and Beach
16:26 - Friar’s Bay Beach
17:47 - Happy Beach
18:04 - Les Terres Basses
18:37 - Bungalow Serenity AirBnB
19:57 - Baie Rouge
20:31 - Marigot
21:06 - Le Gout du Vin
21:41 - Le comptoir des Fromages
22:05 - L’Express French Bakery
22:29 - SPICYMILO
22:55 - Marigot open air market
23:14 - Fort Louis
23:37 - Baie aux Prunes
24:10 - Baie Longue
25:08 - Conclusion
MUSIC
Musicbed and Epidemic Sound
Following music courtesy of epidemicsound.com
Elin Sandberg/Strollin
Trevino and Friends/Good Ol' Days
Stonekeepers/When the River is Calling
Vividry/Come Out
L.M. Styles/Good Times Are Coming
Andre Aguado/Summer Haze
Guustavv/Asparuhgus
Please have a look at the description for chapter links if you want to see a specific beach or segment.
On a related note, the hotel under construction adjacent to the Dawn Beach Club where we stayed, will now be a JW Marriott resort and was originally scheduled to open in November 2023 but it now appears to be Spring 2024.
Excellent video. I own a time-sharing at Dawn Beach and I can say that it is a very complete and fair description. I would only add Îlot Pinel an amazing small island with perfect water. They are schuttles all day from ‘Cul de Sac’
@@B0466620 We hope to visit it on our next trip there! That pesky seaweed clogged up the boats at Cul de Sac. Thx so much for your feedback!
One of our favorite restaurants was at Dawn Beach Westin. The Ocean weekend brunch was ridiculously fantastic.
What a highly produced and informative video thank you. Really above average youtube.
Thanks so much for your feedback! We're just starting out so appreciate your comments, we're having fun making these. Cheers
Hey guys, great video was in depth and knowledgeable with Wonderful scenery....was like I was watching the travel channel!!! Love it.
You made my day with that comment, so glad you enjoyed it! More beach videos coming! 🏖
@YYZ Wanderers anytime and awesome I'm subscribed and will be viewing more!!!
My wife and i stayed in the same place you stayed in Les Terres Basses . We liked the beach Plum Bay and Mullet Bay .We love St Maarten there are so many good restaurants and so many fun things to do.
It’s such a great Airbnb! Totally agree, it’s a pretty perfect Caribbean island! We never expected the quality of the food scene there. Thanks for watching!
One of the things I love about staying at Saint Martin is that almost wherever you stay you get a really
good gas range. Since getting fresh seafood is easy cooking great meals in your room is easy.
Make sure you get a room with a nice deck - St.Martin evenings are great for the breeze and seeing the moon come out.
Many years back the family stayed at Club Orient on Orient Beach - one of the great thing was an outdoor shower that felt fantastic
to take outside. Don't waste your vacation staying up too late or drinking too much as morning sunlight comes early. You will enjoy your trip much
more rising early and going to bed early. This allows beach time before 11am before the sun gets to strong.
Great advice, we have been cooking more on our trips as the cost of eating out is so high these days. French wine in SXM is sooo affordable too! We saw bottles for 4€! I never consciously thought of patios as a must-have but turns out all the ones we stayed at had them and we enjoyed it so much. Thanks for your comment!
Thank you for an amazing view of the island. What an excellent production!
So nice to get this feedback! Itching to go back already.
Beautiful blue water
You guys are such a lovely couple. I want to truly thank you both for this video. My trip is in two weeks and you’ve given me so much information that I needed.
Thank You!
What a sweet thing to say!!!! Love to hear how your trip goes! Google ‘sargassum monitoring map’ and you’ll see which beaches are affected before you hit them. There are just a few that seem to have seaweed and could be cleaned up as pics are not all recent and reflect just a point in time. Have fun 🏝️
Your tips and insights are spot-on, and the footage of the beaches is absolutely mesmerizing. Thank you for sharing your adventure of the beauty of this underrated paradise. I can't wait to visit Saint Martin!
There’s so much we haven’t done yet which is surprising for such a small island. Thanks for your amazing comment and enjoy your visit there!
Very impressive video. I can certainly appreciate the melancholy mood of the end of the video. Always hated leaving St. Maarten. The last time we were there was just before Irma. Our 3 favorite restaurants were ruined and closed after that storm.
One of the coolest spots on the island is the natural pool on the South East coast. You have to drive through Pointe Blanche and park near a trail. It’s about a half hour hike along the coast. It’s actually in Back Bay. You can see St. Barts from there.
I checked my saved spots on google maps, it’s on it but it’s drawing a blank for me. Will definitely put it on the must do list based on your reco, hopefully if we make it back there next year. Plan to find some more hikes, there is a local facebook group that organizes weekly hikes that we hope to hook up with. Thanks so much for taking the time to drop us a comment!
Thank you for the sharing😀
Beautiful 😻😉🙏
Thank you! Appreciate the feedback. Cheers!
Great Video guys , we have been to SXM about 6 times and i still enjoyed your video , calm , well presented , good job !!
So nice to hear that! Maybe we’ll see you there next year! Cheers
great informative video, thanks!
Good to hear! Appreciate the feedback.
Your video was amazing with great coverage & suggestions! Excited for our trip in 2024!
Glad it was useful! Enjoy your trip there, you will love it.
Great video, thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked it.
Excellent content. Very well done.
Thanks, appreciate the time you took to give us feedback!
Most professional and enjoyable travel video I have seen!!!! We have been to St. Maarten about 20 times and I still learned alot from this video. We used to stay at Sonesta Great Bay (loved seeing the cruise ships from our room) which has been demolished since Irma so now stay at the all inclusive Sonesta Maho which we love, can't wait to go in January. I will look into the places you stayed so thank-you!!!!
Oh wow, thanks so much, 20x is definitely expert level! There are always gems to uncover I have found even in places you’ve been to or live in which is the fun part. We’re hoping to visit Tintamarre on our next visit. Enjoy your trip!!!
Best island travel video I`ve come across, and I hope to see future videos on other Caribbean destinations.
Thanks Gary! Funny you should say that because we’re heading to the Bahamas soon. We’re happy you enjoyed our video.
Wonderfully done guys! I love SXM so much as I have family there. I would definitely recommend Petite Plage (Little Beach on your map). Probably the best sunsets I've ever seen!
Ah! You’re right, we did visit PP but it started to rain and didn’t get much footage (then forgot it off the map 😮). It’s a great swimming beach too. Love the artwork on the steps leading down the beach. Hope to make it to Tintamarre next year. Appreciate the feedback!!!
@@YYZWanderers Tintamarre, I have yet to go. Have fun, and make a stop by Pinel on the way 😉 Great video, thank you.
This was awesome!! Love all the info and will use a lot of it like the wine, cheese and spice shops on our next trip. This fall will be our 5th visit and plan to do most everything different this time. More culture, more Marigot, Grand Case, Fort Louis, the big zip line, Anse Marcel, Pinel, Anguilla, St Barth's, etc. Our last trip, we stayed with our teenage boys in 2020 and had to switch our villa to the Dutch side in Cupecoy and didn't get them to Anguilla and St Barth's and didn't get to stay in our villa on Longue Baie but still an amazing trip. Will definitely hit Mullet and Maho again though as they are beautiful and unique to St Martin. Thanks again for all the great information and very well done on the video. I wish I had that talent so I could record our adventures to such an amazing island.
Cheers,
Matt
That’s so great you found this helpful! There’s so much to do on such a small island. We are aiming to visit Anguilla next time. We took the ferry to Saba in 2018 - add that to your list too, you’ll be quite busy! Enjoy your visit! ❤
Very nice. 👍🌴✈️🍺
Thanks! It sure is paradise.
Welcome to saint maarteen ...i have a r in my first name like saint maarteen and i am half ancestry of saint maarteen islander . My mom is partlial saint maarteen through one of her last names named collet and so is my dad though his first name walter.
Thank you for sharing your video, I couldn't make my mind up where I wanted to stay so this helped a lot.
That’s great! We had to work around our week at Dawn beach and flights so we ended up in 3 different areas over 2 wks.
It’s look like cloudy and windy most of the time.
We were there in the summer when this video was taken, the clouds look like they’re going to pour rain but for this 2 wk trip, it only rained once and cleared up quickly. And yes, the east coast (windward side) is windy. June-Oct/Nov is the hurricane season in the Caribbean as well. It is generally a dry (vs lush) island, they don’t grow a lot of produce etc.
Hello! And thank you for the lovely video. I’m going to st martin (French side) in March with my border collie dog Luna. And on your video when on Friars beach there are two dogs playing near you. Are dogs tolerated on the beaches on the french side, as long as we clean up after them of course? And the restaurant on Friars beach, if you rent the sunbed and umbrella from them, they would allow a dog under the umbrella ?
Thank you very much, happy travels !!
We saw many dogs on the beaches on both french and dutch sides including busy Mullet Bay. Everyone seems to clean up, we didn’t see any poop so I think that could be why they are welcome. And no issues having the dogs under the beach rental umbrellas at Friar’s. Folks are quite easy going. The owner of those dogs didn’t seem to be around, they just wanted to hang with us for a bit, they were so cute! Have fun with Luna!
@@YYZWanderers that’s a relief to know , thank you very much !! I was told that on the Dutch side there was no problem at all, but that on the French side the presence of dogs on beaches is restricted, but from what you’ve observed there, it seems like it’s just old information. Thanks again for,your reply I appreciate it.
@@alberciik Ah, I see what you mean - I just googled and on st-martin.org, the French tourist board site, it says they are not allowed. But obviously, doesn't look like its top priority and no one was concerned at Friars. We also saw dogs on Baie Longue, Anse Marcel and Grand Case.
@@YYZWanderers brilliant. That’s reassuring thank you. It looks like it’ll be fine.
That's not Little Bay Beach at 8:34. It's Great Bay Beach. Little Bay is on the other side of the peninsula at the West end of Great Bay.
Oh you’re right! Thanks for letting us know.
It is 37 square miles in area, with 37 beaches, NOT 34. Cheers, I have owned here since 1990.
Ah! We’ll have to go back and find the other 3. Found the info on wikipedia.
Did I miss descriptions of Orient Beach or Cupecoy??
Ummm yes, we skipped Orient because of the sargassum and we spent only a few minutes at Cupecoy, Dany’s wasn’t really happening at sunset that day
Ft. Amsterdam separates Great Bay from Little Bay. Divi is our favorite place to stay.
The resort looked pretty nice when we walked through.
@@YYZWanderers Great video by the way.
What time of year was this filmed?
We were there the first 2 weeks of July. While it’s hot, the country is dry - you can find cacti growing in the landscape. Of course, keep in mind it’s hurricane season. The temp of the water at the beach was quite warm too.
😊❤
👍👍
❤️ 💜 ❤️
GREAT Content! I just Wish your delivery was much quicker, and scenic segments shorter. Soooooooo slow, this youtube is great if you want a movie like presentation of information. Me, I want it quick, I have ltd time.
Appreciate the feedback, we may do shorter tip videos for those doing research only.
Whats better there or sait Bart?
We haven’t been to St Barts but you get a french flair on both!
@@YYZWanderers why not
@@CCCC-tq8yo One day we will! Planning to add either St B and/or Anguilla on our next visit. Let us know where you decide to go!
Informative video but I have no idea why the "car stolen" hearsay made it into the video, ijs...
Glad you found it informative. My thinking on the stolen car was that it would be a good option if you had a choice of staying in a place with gated or secure parking to avoid a situation like that. Otherwise insurance would cover it I suppose. Appreciate you took the time to comment.
@@YYZWanderers I only mentioned it because that island is not exactly known for crime...
That’s true, we have never felt unsafe.
❤🎉great super lucky place 🎊🦋❤️🍻🎉🎉🍷🍷🌹💙💚💛🥰💐💕👍🕉️👍👍🕉️🌻🌷🍺
It sure is! 🌴 🏖️ 🏝️
Thx to this video changed my mind definitely NOT to go there .
The island isn’t for everyone so glad it helped your decision either way. Curious what type of island you were looking for? We are in Eleuthera now and it is extremely quiet and not built up at all. The total opposite!
Hello I’m here now I just left all 3 of the first 3 beaches today my Birthday 47 yay to me it’s 🥵 out here the waves from the beach are so powerful
Happy birthday!!🎂 🍷