The pigs are the easy part. Choosing the boat is not.
Which trip actually stops long enough to snorkel. What the Exuma day costs once the plane is in it. Whether Rose Island beats Blue Lagoon on a five-ship morning. Reviews of every tour you can book in the Bahamas.
Rose Island, Pearl Island, or the whole way down to Exuma.
Every version of this day puts you in front of a pig. What changes is how far the boat goes, how long you are on the water, and what it costs to get aboard.
Big Major Cay made them famous. Rose Island made them a morning.
The pigs that swim out to meet a boat live on an uninhabited cay in the Exumas, a hundred miles south of Nassau. New Providence has its own herds twenty minutes offshore. Both are real animals in real water; only one of them costs you the whole day.
Nassau is the departure lounge for nearly all of it.
Boats leave from the harbour and the Paradise Island bridge, buggies leave from the cruise berths, and the walking tours start on Bay Street. Six ways to spend a day here, and the best of each.
What most people end up booking in Nassau.
The full Bahamas list →The trips that carry more travellers than anything else on the island, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Bites of Nassau Food and Walking Tour
Explore Nassau through five local food stops, rum cocktails, history, and a three-hour small-group walking tour for $99.
From · $99
Read our review →
2
3 Islands Tour, Snorkel, Pig Beach, Turtles & Lunch
from $136
3
Pirate Jeep Sightseeing Adventure!
from $165
4
Swimming Pigs and Private Beach Club Escape
from $149
5
Sandy Toes The Original Rose Island and Swimming Pigs Tour
from $258
6
Pigs, Snorkel, Turtles, Lunch, Private Beach Club
from $139
7
Rum Tasting and Food Walking Tour in Nassau Bahamas
from $98
8
ATV Island Tour with Beach Break (Everyone Drive their Own ATV)
from $101
The reef off Nassau is ten minutes from the dock.
Sergeant majors over a shallow patch reef, green turtles that come to the transom at Rose Island, and a glass-bottomed kayak for anyone who would rather look than swim. The snorkel stop usually rides along with the pig run, and it still earns a booking of its own.
What a day out of Nassau actually costs.
Every priced trip on the site, grouped by what one person pays. Boats quoted by the charter rather than by the head sit outside these bands, because a hull price and a seat price do not compare.
Downtown walking tours, the culture runs, a kayak morning at Junkanoo Beach and the airport shuttle.
The standard island day: pigs, a reef stop, turtles, a private beach club and lunch on the sand.
Exuma by powerboat or small plane, the fly-in beach days and a boat with nobody else on it.
From December to March a norther can shut the boats down.
Cold fronts slide off Florida every couple of weeks through the winter, the wind swings hard into the north and the water outside the harbour gets up. Operators cancel, usually the evening before or at first light. New Providence has a full day of answers that never leave the island.
Three days you cannot have anywhere else.
Beach clubs and reef trips run the length of the Caribbean. A pig swimming out to your boat, a sandbar that surfaces at low tide off Staniel Cay, and rum cake eaten a street from where the rum is blended do not.
The Swimming Pigs
Nobody can prove how the pigs got to an uninhabited cay in the Exumas, and every captain tells it differently: a shipwreck, a farmer, a hotel that thought better of it. What is certain is that they learned boats mean food, so they wade out and swim. Feed them in the water, not on the sand, and keep your fingers flat. They are large animals with no manners and a very good memory for coolers.
- 13 Islands Tour, Snorkel, Pig Beach, Turtles & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 2,585 reviews
- 2Swimming Pigs and Private Beach Club Escape★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,238 reviews
- 3Sandy Toes The Original Rose Island and Swimming Pigs Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,232 reviews
The Exuma Cays
The Exumas are a three-hundred-and-sixty-cay chain running southeast from Nassau, and the water over the banks is shallow enough to read the bottom from a plane. A day trip means an early powerboat or a small aircraft, then a circuit: the pigs, the nurse sharks at Compass Cay, the iguanas on Bitter Guana, a sandbar that is dry land for two hours and gone by mid-afternoon. It is a long day and the sea decides how comfortable it is.
- 1Exuma Elite Escape: Luxury Fly-In Pig Beach Adventure – 7 Stops★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 504 reviews
- 2Exuma Island Hopping Swimming Pigs Tour with Lunch from Nassau★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 482 reviews
- 3Exuma Powerboat Tour from Nassau with Swimming Pigs★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 474 reviews
Rum, Cake and Conch
Bahamian rum is blended rather than distilled here, and the tasting rooms downtown pour the young white stuff beside the aged one that costs four times as much so you can tell where the money goes. The cake is a separate institution, soaked rather than iced, sold warm by the slice. Pair the two with cracked conch from a fish fry counter and you have eaten the national argument in one afternoon.
- 1Rum Tasting and Food Walking Tour in Nassau Bahamas★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,030 reviews
- 2Rum Reggae and Rhythms Tour: Dancing and Cocktails★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 651 reviews
- 3Rum Tastings and Culinary Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 200 reviews
Five days, and only two of them on the same boat.
Day 1 · DowntownBay Street, the Queen’s Staircase, conch for lunch
Day 2 · Rose IslandPigs, a reef stop and a beach club
Day 3 · The ExumasSouth by powerboat, sandbars, Staniel Cay
Day 4 · West endBuggies out to Clifton and the quiet beaches
Day 5 · The beach clubA day pass, a lounger and a cold Kalik
Any eveningRum cake, the fish fry and the Bay Street kitchens By island: where the boat actually goes
By kind of day: water, road or table
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