Omar Perez
While the Caribbean is synonymous with celebrations year-round, summer is one of the more festive times of the year: festival season. From celebrating emancipation to harvests, each festival's origins vary island by island, and each event showcases a destination's culture via food and drink, pageants, music, street party celebrations (jouverts), art and dance performances. Here are just a few:
Bahamas
The Goombay Summer Festival runs through Aug. 24, taking place in multiple regions (Bimini, Grand Bahama, Nassau, Central Andros and Eleuthera). Festivities at each destination include Goombay dancers, stilt-walker performers, live music, art displays and Bahamian cuisine that most certainly involves conch served in a variety of ways.
Anguilla
Anguilla, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary from English colonial rule, will hold its Anguilla Summer Festival from July 21 until Aug. 11. The festival combines Caribbean celebrations with boat racing, the most popular sport in Anguilla. Its jouvert (Aug. 5), rather than on a street, takes place on a beach with an all-day party and concert. The festival concludes with the Champ of Champs boat race on Aug. 10.
Antigua
Antigua Carnival runs from July 25 to Aug. 6 and is held on the streets of the capital, St. John's, and in Carnival City at the Antigua Recreation Ground, home of cricket in Antigua. Popular events include the Panorama steel band competition, the Parade of Bands, the Queen of Carnival Pageant, the Mr. and Mrs. Teenage Pageant and the Jaycees Queen's Competition.
Barbados
The origins of the Barbados Crop Over Festival, which runs from July 31 to Aug. 6, go back to the mid-1700s, when the island was among the world's top sugarcane growers and locals celebrated a successful growing season yearly. The Crop Over Festival traditionally begins with the Opening Gala and Ceremonial Delivery of the Last Canes, and the crowning of the King and Queen. The Cohobblopot show, featuring musicians donning elaborate costumes, is also a popular draw.
A stilt walker takes part in Grenada’s 2022 Spicemas festival. Photo Credit: Grenada Tourism Authority
Grenada
Grenada's Spicemas, which runs Aug. 1-13, is the island's biggest festival of the year and pays homage to its spice agriculture that has earned the island the nickname the "spice island of the Caribbean." Among the highlights is the jouvert street party (Aug. 12), which starts before dawn and lasts until sunrise the following day. Throughout the night, Jab-Jab bands and performers parade around town, painting themselves with stale molasses, tar, grease or mud and wearing horned helmets, adding a mythical virtue to their appearance. Grenada, like Anguilla, is also celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence from Britain.
St. Kitts and Nevis
Toward year's end, Sugar Mas is slated for Dec. 13 to Jan. 2, 2025, and will serve up a mix of music, folklore, parties and pageantry. One highlight is the National Carnival Parade, held on New Year's Day. The following day, the closing Carnival with the Last Lap parade sees revelers take to the streets in colorful, festive garb.