Just 43km long and 22.5km wide, enviably green and dense, St. Lucia is a picture-perfect island. Tempting as it might be to take cheap flights to St. Lucia and spend all your vacation on the beach, you'd miss a lot of what the island has to offer.
This Caribbean gem - one of the Windward Islands - was fought over by the British and the French for years. Many St. Lucians are descended from African slaves and East Indian servants. The result is an English island in terms of education, politics (St. Lucia is a member of the British Commonwealth) and the legal system and French in terms of food and music.
The rainforest covers the interior of the island so most of the population reside in the low-lying parts of the island or on the hillsides. Most of the resorts are situated near Castries, the capital, and Soufriere, the former French capital, that sits at the foot of the mighty Piton Mountains.
One landmark makes St. Lucia unique - the drive-in Volcano in Soufriere. You'll know you're close when you catch the smell of sulphur, very like rotten eggs. St. Lucians bathe in the waters, believing them to have therapeutic qualities.
Search and compare: cheap flights to St. Lucia
