One Week in the Bahamas: Offbeat Plan

A week is enough to treat The Bahamas as more than a Nassau resort stop. This route spends two days in local, off-resort Nassau, three based in the Exumas for swimming pigs and Thunderball Grotto, then two more on Harbour Island for pink sand and Dunmore Town, with every inter-island leg by flight or ferry, since this archipelago of roughly 700 islands has no roads connecting them. The Bahamas is its own country, not a US state or Puerto Rico, with Nassau as capital and US dollars taken everywhere at par with the Bahamian dollar, so there is no currency to exchange. A passport is the only paperwork now; the COVID-era health form ended in June 2022, and flying home from Nassau you clear US customs before boarding, at the airport’s own preclearance counter. Expect premium prices throughout, not a budget week, and if any of these seven days fall between June and November, that’s hurricane season, so travel insurance is worth the cost regardless of which two islands you pick. The US State Department rates the country Level 2, exercise increased caution, concentrated in Nassau’s Over the Hill area; both Out Islands on this route are consistently among the safest parts of the country.

This route pairs off-resort Nassau with two Out Islands instead of one, flying back through Nassau between them since there’s no direct link from the Exumas to Harbour Island. Stay on New Providence only for 2 days or 3 days ; commit to a single Out Island instead of two at 4 , 5 , or 6 days . Divers and repeat visitors who’d rather skip the pigs entirely could swap the Exumas for Andros, home to the highest concentration of blue holes anywhere on Earth and a serious barrier reef, though that’s a different week than this one.

Book these before you go:

Day Focus Island / transit Rough daily spend (USD)
1 Arawak Cay Fish Fry, jitney downtown, Bay Street, Queen’s Staircase, Fort Fincastle Nassau, New Providence $60-100
2 Cable Beach or Love Beach, or a half-day sandbar boat trip; pack for the Exuma flight Nassau, New Providence $50-180
3 Flight to Exuma, settle in, afternoon snorkel at Thunderball Grotto Nassau to Exuma (flight) $150-250
4 Full-day local charter: Big Major Cay’s swimming pigs, Compass Cay’s nurse sharks, the Land and Sea Park Exuma, Staniel Cay area $200-350
5 Bitter Guana Cay’s iguanas or a slow George Town morning, afternoon flight back to Nassau Exuma to Nassau (flight) $150-250
6 Bahamas Ferries or a flight to North Eleuthera, golf cart rental, Dunmore Town, Pink Sand Beach Nassau to Harbour Island (ferry/flight) $100-160
7 Morning at Pink Sand Beach, water taxi and flight back to Nassau, US preclearance, departure Harbour Island to Nassau (flight), departure $120-220

Day 1: Arawak Cay’s Fish Fry and Nassau on foot

Start at Arawak Cay, known locally as the Fish Fry: a strip of small conch shacks a short jitney ride from downtown, and the place actual Nassau residents eat, not a resort buffet. Order conch salad first, raw conch diced to order with tomato, onion, pepper and citrus, an only-in-The-Bahamas dish, or cracked conch if you want something hot and fried; either is a better $15-20 lunch than anything inside a resort.

From there, a jitney into downtown runs $1.25 to $2.50 in exact cash, cheaper than a taxi and a better way to ride with locals instead of past them. Walk Bay Street and the Straw Market for local straw crafts; Bay Street is also home turf for Junkanoo, the Bahamian street-parade tradition rooted in enslaved West Africans’ Christmas celebrations, with major parades every Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Then climb the Queen’s Staircase, 65-plus steps cut into limestone by enslaved laborers in the late 18th century, up to Fort Fincastle for a harbor view that costs nothing but the walk.

Day 2: Cable Beach, a boat, and packing for Exuma

Trade Paradise Island for Cable Beach, home to Baha Mar’s casino and Baha Bay water park but backed by a public shoreline you can use without a room key. Love Beach, a few minutes further west, is quieter still and the better pick for actual swimming. Skip the Atlantis Aquaventure day pass here; it runs a dynamically priced $195-260 for an adult (check the live rate at atlantisbahamas.com ), money better saved for the week ahead.

If a beach chair sounds like more of Day 1, book a half-day sandbar or snorkel boat trip instead, through a resort desk or a named operator rather than someone touting business on the sand. The US State Department flags jet-ski and watersports incidents alongside gang violence concentrated in the Over the Hill area south of Shirley Street, well away from anywhere on this route. Repack tonight: tomorrow’s flight to Exuma has its own baggage rules, and the Harbour Island leg later this week means golf carts, not suitcases on wheels, once you land.

Day 3: The flight to Exuma and Thunderball Grotto’s first tide

Bahamasair and Western Air both fly Nassau to George Town’s Exuma International Airport, roughly 40 minutes, and George Town doubles as the launch point for boat charters heading north toward Staniel Cay. A smaller charter service covers the shorter hop up to Staniel Cay’s own airstrip directly, worth arranging in advance if you’d rather base right in the middle of the pigs-and-grotto circuit than commute to it by boat each day.

Once settled, use what’s left of the afternoon for a first look at Thunderball Grotto, the partially submerged limestone sea cave made famous by the 1965 James Bond film of the same name. Time it near low tide, when light through the cave roof is strongest and the swim in is easiest; save the fuller circuit, pigs included, for tomorrow’s full day out.

Day 4: Swimming pigs, nurse sharks, and the Land and Sea Park

This is the day three Exuma nights buys that a Nassau day trip never can. Book a full-day local charter to Big Major Cay, better known as Pig Beach, where feral pigs swim out to greet arriving boats. Follow the operator’s feeding instructions closely: a 2017 die-off among the pigs was tied to tourists feeding them human food and alcohol, and responsible operators now manage what visitors are allowed to offer.

The same charter typically continues to Compass Cay, home to resident nurse sharks that guests can swim among in shallow water under the dock owner’s supervision, and into a stretch of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a no-take marine reserve that keeps the wider reef and fish population healthy. Basing in Exuma rather than day-tripping from Nassau means this circuit is a short boat ride, not an 80-mile crossing each way.

Day 5: Exuma’s quiet side, then the flight back to Nassau

Give the morning to whichever Exuma still owes you something: Bitter Guana Cay’s rock iguanas if yesterday’s boat skipped them, or a slower walk around George Town itself if a day without a schedule sounds better. Either way, keep the afternoon free for the flight back to Nassau, since the Exumas have no ferry or flight connection onward to Harbour Island, and every version of this route has to pass back through the capital to make the next leg.

Use the connection time in Nassau to reset for a different island entirely: golf carts instead of boat charters, a fixed pink-sand beach instead of hopping between cays.

Day 6: Back through Nassau to Harbour Island’s pink sand

Catch the Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday morning Bahamas Ferries sailing from Potter’s Cay if your dates line up, or a short domestic flight to North Eleuthera plus a ten-minute water taxi if they don’t. On arrival, rent a golf cart from one of the island’s outfits (Lulu’s, Major’s, and Dunmore Rentals all operate on Harbour Island), the standard way to get around since there is effectively no other traffic worth mentioning.

Spend the afternoon on the roughly three miles of genuinely pink-tinted sand at Pink Sand Beach, the color coming from crushed red coral and shell mixed into the white sand, then explore Dunmore Town’s clapboard colonial streets by cart before dinner at one of its small inns.

Day 7: Last light on Pink Sand Beach, then home through preclearance

Spend the morning on whatever this trip has had the least of: a final stretch of Pink Sand Beach, or one more slow loop of Dunmore Town’s shops by golf cart. From there, the water taxi back to North Eleuthera connects to a short domestic flight on Bahamasair or Western Air into Nassau, timed to make an international departure through Lynden Pindling International Airport’s US preclearance counter, so a flight home to the US clears customs before boarding rather than on arrival.

Do you need a visa for The Bahamas?

No, not for a short stay, though the allowance varies by passport: roughly eight months for US and Canadian citizens, about 90 days for the UK, and three months for the EU. A passport is the only document required now; the COVID-era Bahamas Travel Health Visa was scrapped in June 2022. Confirm your nationality’s exact terms at bahamas.com before you fly.

How do you get from Exuma to Harbour Island?

You don’t, not directly. There is no ferry or flight linking the two Out Islands, so this route flies back into Nassau on Day 5 first, then either catches a Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday Bahamas Ferries sailing to Harbour Island or takes a short domestic flight to North Eleuthera instead. Budget the better part of Day 5 and the start of Day 6 for this connection rather than expecting to island-hop directly between them.

Are the swimming pigs worth three days in the Exumas?

Yes, more so than a single rushed day from Nassau. Basing in Exuma means the pigs, Thunderball Grotto, Compass Cay’s nurse sharks, and the Land and Sea Park all sit a short local boat ride apart rather than an 80-mile crossing each way, so the circuit fills one full day instead of swallowing the whole visit in transit. The trade-off is cost and remoteness either way, and the welfare point about not feeding the pigs junk food or alcohol applies regardless of how you get there.

One concrete tip: book the Nassau-to-Exuma and Exuma-to-Nassau flights before anything else on this trip. Everything else, the ferry, the golf cart, the boat charter, can shift by a day if weather or schedules move; the two flights that hold this whole route together cannot.