A weekend in Sint Maarten
Visited in May 2022
If you’ve never heard of Sint Maarten, you’re probably living behind the moon. Or you belong to an age group that rarely uses social media. Everyone else will have seen photos or videos of this island, as it offers a spectacle that you can only experience on this island.
This refers to the island’s airport, which is located directly next to a beach. Every day, dozens of airplanes land there just a stone’s throw above the beach guests. As a result, hundreds, in some cases even thousands of people flock to this beach every day, making Sint Maarten the plane spotting Mecca of the world.
Sint Maarten is not a country. More precisely, it is not even an island, but half of it. This island itself is called St. Martin and it is divided into two parts. The northern part Saint-Martin is a French overseas territory that also belongs to the European Union, while the southern part is Sint Maarten. A Dutch overseas territory, but not part of the EU. Besides, there are three currencies in use on the island: the Antillean Guilders, which is the official currency, plus the Euro and the USD.
Since St. Martin is virtually “Europe” in the Caribbean, it is also relatively easy to get there. AirFrance flies daily from Paris to Sint Maarten and KLM flies three times a week from Amsterdam. There are also numerous flights from North America and many other Caribbean islands. We used the eight-hour connection from Amsterdam, which leaves Europe in the morning and arrives in the Caribbean around noon.
Besides the already mentioned plane spotting, the island offers other things too. St. Martin is not very big. It takes about three to four hours to drive once around the island. You can easily drive back and forth between the French and Dutch part. There are no border controls or anything, just a sign that you have arrived in the other country.
Sint Maarten vs. Saint-Martin
After spending the first afternoon in Sint Maarten at the beach, we explored the island the next day. St. Martin is a pretty island that has many other attractions apart from beaches. Besides, it has a bit of a jet-set character. Next to all the luxury hotels, you can also find a lot of magnificent villas and yachts. The island regularly attracts wealthy immigrants from Europe who want to spend the rest of their lives in this tropical paradise.
There is one downside to this, however, and that is that St. Martin is a densely populated (more than 70,000 people live here) and also heavily motorized island, which sometimes results in traffic jams on the main roads (we didn’t experience any). By the way, parking outside of the cities is done by simply putting your car somewhere on the side of the road.
We circled the island clockwise. We started in Simpson Bay, in the Dutch part, and after about fifteen minutes we already reached the border to the French side. Basically, I would describe the French side a little different than the Dutch. In the French part, for example, I saw almost as many white people as locals. English is, just like in Paris, rather not so common. 😉
Both sides have a capital, by the way. In Saint Martin it is Marigot, in Sint Maarten Philipsburg. Both are quite tiny villages and it takes about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Marigot seemed pretty laid-back and pleasant to me and has with the Fort St. Louis another cool sight, from where you get an amazing view.
On the other hand, Philipsburg shines with its colorful architecture, but seems a lot more touristy than Marigot. This is not surprising, because all the cruise ships arrive here. As a result, you will find a lot of souvenir stores along the beach promenade in Philipsburg and there are also more people who want to sell you something than in Marigot.
Around the island there are some worth seeing stops and viewpoints (Trou David, Pic Paradis, Rotary Lookout, …). There are also beautiful beaches all over the island, although we did not pay too much attention to them, because we wanted to spend the next day at Maho Beach. However, if you are looking for beaches that attract fewer tourists, you will certainly find them on the island.
If I had to choose which side was better, the French or the Dutch, I think I would choose the Dutch. It is definitely the more touristy side, but seems a bit more lively than the French and also includes the highlight of the island…
The plane spotting Mecca of the world
Sint Maarten is especially famous for its Maho Beach, which is located right next to the airport. You’ve probably seen videos of planes coming in for a landing just a little bit above the people on the beach. For many, including me, that was also the main reason for visiting the island.
We spent our last day at Maho Beach before we left Sint Maarten in the late afternoon. And this experience was absolutely awesome. First, it must be said that we were lucky for two reasons. On the one hand, the peak season in the Caribbean is already over at the end of May and on the other hand, no cruise ship arrived in Sint Maarten that day. So the beach was not too crowded.
Now, how do you have to imagine this plane spotting? First of all, Maho Beach isn’t too big, but it’s in front of beautiful turquoise water. A beach that would be very nice for swimming even without the planes. On the beach you can rent sunbeds for $10, which I think is worth it if you want to stay there longer. Especially because you get an umbrella to protect you from the strong sun.
The planes land then about every ten minutes, whereby a large part of them is rather small. Of course, the big planes from American Airlines, JetBlue, KLM, AirFrance and so on are the most interesting. These are the main reason to go to the beach (although the small ones are cool too).
At the Sunset Bar and Grill at the end of the beach, you can find the arrival times of these planes written on a surfboard. It is clear that the best time for plane spotting is just before noon until about half past three. This is when most of the big planes land. However, it is worthwhile to track the flight status on an app (I use the free version of Flightradar24), as it goes without saying that the planes do not land to the minute.
The landing of the plane is then nothing but spectacular. The planes fly – depending on the size of the plane in a beguiling noise – really just over people’s heads before they then land on the runway. The time you see the plane until it completes its landing, I would estimate around 30 seconds. That’s the time you have for the money shot.
How much time you spend at Maho Beach is up to you. There are some who come for an hour or two and others like us who spend the whole day there. The important thing is to be there when the big planes land. My conclusion about plane spotting is: just spectacular and definitely one of my highlights I had experienced in the Caribbean.
Is Sint Maarten worth a trip?
Sint Maarten or the whole island of St. Martin is in my opinion a cool destination where you can easily spend a few days. Unlike the other islands we visited after Sint Maarten, one day here is definitely not enough to see and experience everything. So, yes, Sint Maarten is in my opinion worth a trip.
My recommendation for all travelers who want to visit Sint Maarten is to spend one day exploring the island, one for plane spotting and a few more days if you want to visit more beautiful beaches or do other activities (e.g. doing day-trips to the neighboring islands St. Barths, Anguilla or Saba). I think you can easily spend a few days here without getting bored. Therefore, St. Martin is suitable both for those who like to experience something and for those who just want to spend a vacation.
Of all the islands we visited on this trip, I actually liked St. Martin the most. What appealed to me was on the one hand this “Europe in the Caribbean” feeling but on the other hand also that two countries share one island and you can easily travel back and forth between both sides. Apart from that, I think St. Martin has more to offer than many other Caribbean islands. I don’t even mean just the plane spotting but also the other activities you can do on the island.
However, St. Martin was definitely the least authentic of all the islands we visited. After all, the island is quite touristy and on the French side you see almost more immigrant Europeans than Carib people. This didn’t bother me, but I can imagine that some travelers see this as a point of criticism.
Apart from that, I would like to emphasize the friendliness of the locals. The people, both on the Dutch and French side, were very polite and helpful. However, this applied to all the islands in the Lesser Antilles we visited on that trip. In general, I had the feeling that in this part of the world both tourists and locals are in a good mood, which makes the stay on the islands very pleasant.
If I had to name anything I didn’t like, it would be the high prices, which are unfortunately common in the Caribbean. At least the hotels are slightly cheaper than on the neighboring islands. For our 4-star resort, for example, we paid USD 144 per night, which was still comparatively cheap. Nevertheless, Sint Maarten remains an expensive destination. The food, the activities, basically everything costs a lot. Even 10-minute taxi rides cost 20 dollars.
But let’s face it. The main target group among Caribbean tourists are middle-aged or old Americans with high purchasing power. Young tourists or backpackers are not at all in the focus of the tourism industries here.
After three days, we then left the island for St. Kitts and Nevis. A tiny propeller plane, with about twelve passengers seated and the cockpit door open, took me to my 132nd country. Click here if you want to read how St. Kitts and Nevis was.
