12 sea caves, historic sites, lagoons, and cultural landmarks across Curaçao, from the UNESCO-listed streets of Willemstad and the Queen Emma floating bridge to flamingo lagoons and coves you reach only by boat.
The Willemstad estate where bright-blue Curaçao liqueur is still made, distilled from the dried peel of the island's Laraha orange. Tours and tastings on site.
Photo: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
One of the largest ostrich farms outside Africa, at Groot Sint Joris in the east. Open-vehicle safari tours run among the birds, with feeding, egg displays, and a restaurant.
Photo: ImagePerson via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
A sea aquarium and marine park at Bapor Kibra on the southeast coast, with reef tanks, an open-water lagoon, and hands-on animal encounters with rays, sharks, and sea lions.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
Dinah Veeris's traditional herb and aloe garden in the countryside, an ethnobotanical Kunuku garden preserving Curaçao's folk medicine, plants, and Afro-Caribbean heritage.
Photo: Kattiel via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
Dolphin encounters and in-water swims at the Sea Aquarium park near Willemstad, from shallow-water meets to guided snorkel and scuba sessions with bottlenose dolphins.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
The 1635 Dutch fort at the mouth of St Anna Bay, now the seat of Curaçao's government. It holds a small church museum and still has a British cannonball lodged in one wall.
Photo: Charles Hoffman from New York, United States via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
Limestone caves in the north near the airport, with stalactites, underground pools, a colony of bats, and Amerindian rock paintings left by the island's original inhabitants.
Photo: 巫迪文 via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)
Historic salt pans near Sint Willibrordus where wild flamingos gather to feed in the pink-tinged shallows. Best photographed at dawn or dusk from the roadside.
Photo: -JvL- from Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
An uninhabited island southeast of Curaçao with brilliant white sand, an old lighthouse, a shipwreck, and turtles in clear water. A full-day boat trip from Spanish Water or Caracas Bay.
Photo: Hardscarf via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
An anthropological museum in Otrobanda confronting the transatlantic slave trade and African heritage, set in a restored historic quarter on the site of a former slave-trading yard.
Photo: -JvL- from Netherlands via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
Founded in 1651, this is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas. Its 1732 building is famous for the white sand spread across the sanctuary floor.
Photo: Concord via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
A floating pontoon footbridge that swings open across St Anna Bay to link the Punda and Otrobanda sides of Willemstad. Free to cross, and one of the most photographed sights on the island.
Photo: The Cosmonaut via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.5 ca (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/deed.en)
Pick the sites near your base, check their opening days, then use the travel guides to fit them into a route.