First thing to know, and it changes everything: Bermuda is not in the Caribbean. The archipelago sits in the North Atlantic, about a thousand kilometres east of North Carolina, on the same latitude as Charleston. The Gulf Stream warms it, which gives it a subtropical climate, but in January the air hovers near 19 °C and the sea drops below 20 °C. This is not a mid-winter beach destination, and knowing that before booking saves a disappointment.
The essentials in four lines
- Canadian passport valid for the whole of your stay. No visa for up to 180 days.
- An arrival card must be completed online before the flight and shown at immigration.
- Visitors cannot rent a car: scooter, electric minicar, bus, ferry or taxi.
- May to October for swimming. Hurricane season runs June to November.
A climate that sets the calendar
From May to October the air holds between 26 and 30 °C and the sea reaches 27 °C in August: that is the beach season, the only one. From December to March, Bermuda becomes a destination for walking, golf, restaurants and heritage, with mild days, wind and hotel rates that sometimes fall by half. Many hotels close or cut services during those months.
April and November are the two hinges: pleasant for everything except long swims. If your goal is sand and warm water in February, our guide to winter sun destinations will serve you better.
The pink sand, and why it is pink
The colour comes from a microscopic organism, a foraminifer with a bright red shell that lives beneath the reefs and whose fragments mix into the white limestone sand. The result ranges from rosy beige to distinct pink depending on the angle of the sun and how wet the sand is.
Horseshoe Bay
The most photographed, a crescent closed off by eroded rock, with lifeguards in summer and easy access from the road. Take the path west: ten minutes brings you to a series of tiny coves, one of them a natural pool barely bigger than a swimming pool, ideal with small children.
Warwick Long Bay
A kilometre and a half of sand, far less busy than its neighbour, with a large isolated rock fifty metres offshore that serves as a landmark.
Church Bay
Small, at the bottom of a staircase, but the best shore-accessible snorkelling on the island: the reef starts almost at the water’s edge.
Tobacco Bay
At the eastern end near St. George’s, a cove sheltered by limestone formations carved by the sea. Ideal for a pause after touring the old town.
Getting around without a car
This is Bermuda’s most disconcerting and, in the end, most agreeable quirk: visitors are not allowed to rent a car. The islands capped the vehicle fleet at one car per household decades ago to protect their narrow roads.
Four options remain: the scooter, widespread but demanding on winding roads where you drive on the left; the two-seat electric minicar, rentable for the past few years; the network of pink buses and ferries, efficient and inexpensive, covering most of the archipelago; and taxis, costly but convenient. Many visitors combine ferry and bus with a multi-day transport pass.
What there is to see
St. George’s, founded in 1612, is the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Limestone lanes, a church left unfinished since 1874, stocks re-enactments on the main square.
At the other end, the former Royal Naval Dockyard now houses a maritime museum, craft workshops and the cruise terminal. Between them, Hamilton holds the shops, restaurants and office life, where you still pass businessmen in Bermuda shorts and knee socks, perfectly serious professional dress here.
Crystal and Fantasy Caves, found in 1907 by two boys looking for their cricket ball, open onto an underground lake of unreal clarity, crossed by a floating walkway.
Underwater, the archipelago sits at the centre of a reef platform that has sunk more than three hundred ships in four centuries. Many wrecks lie between eight and twenty metres, within reach of novice divers and sometimes even snorkellers: this is the best wreck diving in the North Atlantic.
All-inclusive in Bermuda
Best written plainly: the all-inclusive format as the Caribbean knows it barely exists here. Bermudian hotels sell by the room, and travellers eat in the island’s restaurants. One or two beachfront resorts offer an optional plan covering meals and drinks, and some properties include breakfast, but there is no wristband, no unlimited buffet, no water park.
The consequence is budgetary. Bermuda is among the most expensive destinations in the world: everything is imported, space is scarce, and the presence of the reinsurance sector has pushed local prices very high. Dinner for two easily exceeds what you would pay at a good Montreal restaurant. Our criteria for choosing an all-inclusive hotel remain useful if you are comparing with a Caribbean destination, if only to measure the gap.
Entry requirements, health and safety
A Canadian passport must be valid for the whole stay. No visa is required for a tourist stay of up to 180 days. An arrival card must be completed online before the flight. Officers may ask for a return ticket and proof of funds; amounts over 10 000 dollars must be declared.
No vaccine is mandatory. Hospital care is of a good standard but very costly without insurance: adequate travel medical coverage is essential. The Bermudian dollar is at par with the US dollar, which is used everywhere.
For current entry conditions and official recommendations, see the Government of Canada page on Bermuda.
Two details that explain the place
The white stepped roofs you see everywhere are not decorative. The archipelago has neither river nor usable groundwater: each house collects rainwater on its roof, filters it through lime-washed limestone and stores it in a tank. It is the law, and it is the only reason Bermuda is habitable.
The other is the Gombeys: troupes of masked dancers in costumes of feathers and mirrors, a crossed inheritance from West Africa, the Caribbean and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. They dance to drums in the streets over the year-end holidays and on Emancipation Day, and nothing elsewhere looks like them.
To plan this trip, see also Bermudes, our month-by-month calendar and the All-inclusive vacations section.
