The best things to do in St Lucia, beyond the beaches

Don't spend all your time on the beach. St Lucia has some of the most dramatic scenery of any Caribbean island just waiting to be explored, along with lovely botanical gardens and a bubbling volcano to visit.

Explore St Lucia's colonial history

Pigeon Island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, is a scenic, 44-acre national park, dotted with the remains of British fortifications and military buildings from the late 1700s. Fort Rodney, converted to a US signal station in the Second World War, is the spot to head for. It sits atop the lower of the island's two hills; a sweaty climb is repaid with glorious, 360-degree views.

Insider tip: Come for the day. Pigeon Island has two lovely little beaches (see our beach recommendations), and, just along from them, a rustic waterfront café, Jambe de Bois, serving drinks and good, inexpensive food.

Address: Rodney Bay
Contact: slunatrust.org
Price: £

• The best hotels in St Lucia

Go on a rainforest adventure

If you want to experience the wonders of St Lucia's rainforest up close with zero effort, sign up for a ride on Rainforest Adventures' Aerial Tram. Sitting in an eight-seater, open-air gondola, you glide serenely up and down a jungly mountainside in the north of the island, past giant ficus and gommier trees, dazzling heliconias and hummingbirds.

Insider tip: The centre also offers zip-lining. You whizz on cables and make Tarzan leaps and rappel drops between platforms high up in the rainforest canopy. It's all well run, and a fun bonding experience with children. Many visitors do the tram and zip-lining.

Address: Castries Waterworks Reserve, near Babonneau
Contact: 00 1 758 458 5151; rainforestadventure.com
Prices: £££

Wander around the capital

While bustling Castries isn't the prettiest port in the Caribbean, it deserves an hour of pottering if you're passing through. Its focal point and most scenic spot is Derek Walcott Square, named after St Lucia's most famous poet and playwright, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. A magnificent saman tree, said to be over 400 years old, dominates the grassy expanse.

Insider tip: It's definitely worth looking inside the 20th-century Catholic cathedral on the square's eastern side. Its walls are coated in brilliantly coloured murals of black saints, painted by Dunstan St Omer, a leading St Lucian artist.

Address: Cathedral on Laborie and Micoud Streets
Prices: Free

• The best restaurants in St Lucia

Stock up on souvenirs

The best place on the island to shop for affordable souvenirs is Castries' Vendors' Arcade, in the city centre by the waterfront and across the street in another market building. Dozens of stalls sell T-shirts, textiles, basketwork and, most interestingly, local produce – cinnamon sticks, nutmeg balls, sticks of cocoa (for making hot chocolate) and bags of spices. Be prepared for the hard sell and need to bargain.

Insider tip: A visit to Castries' fruit and veg market, adjacent to the tourist market, is also highly recommended. Stalls are piled high with bananas, plantains, coconuts, pineapples, limes, breadfruit, soursop, dasheene, yams and much else besides. It's liveliest on Saturday mornings.

Address: John Compton Highway, Castries
Opening times: Vendors Arcade, Mon-Sat, 8am-5pm; food market, Mon-Sat, 6am-7pm

Browse and buy top-quality sculpture

Eudovic's Art Studio, in the hills south of Castries, is a roadside complex of workshops and galleries for the island's leading wood sculptors. On show, and for sale, are exquisite, large-scale, abstract creations, wall plaques and masks, made from local woods such as laurier canelle, mahogany and cedar. You can also buy affordable and delightful little hand-carved souvenirs of turtles, fish and birds.

Insider tip: The studio lies at the rear of Morne Fortune, a high ridge of wooded hills rising up behind Castries, with great views from the hairpin road. The British and French heavily contested the area in colonial times; learn more at Fort Charlotte's monuments and old military buildings.

Contact: 00 1 758 452 2747; eudovicart.com
Prices: Free to visit
Opening times: Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm; Sat-Sun, 8am-2pm

• The best nightlife in St Lucia

Drop by St Lucia's most beautiful bay

Marigot Bay was used as an exotic setting for the 1967 version of the film Doctor Doolittle. Fringed with mangroves, surrounded by forested, steep hills, and with a palm-studded spit of sand at its entrance, it is a remarkably beautiful spot. Fancy yachts can often be seen in the deep natural harbour, which is a so-called hurricane hole – a place of refuge for boats during storms.

Insider tip: The only way to get to the spit of sand is by boat. On the go-on-demand little ferry, the journey takes two minutes and costs EC$5 (£1.50) return per person. Though the beach is a bit scruffy close up, it's good for a swim, and you'll find sunbeds for hire and watersports.

Address: 30 minutes' drive south of Castries.

Explore the island's most enjoyable gardens

The Diamond Falls Botanical Gardens, a short drive from Soufrière, is spread over six acres of well-maintained and well-labelled grounds. There is plenty of flora to admire, including giant bamboo, anthuriums, cocoa and nutmeg trees, and torch ginger, along with a photogenic and impressive waterfall whose mineral-rich waters come from the nearby sulphur springs.

Insider tip: For a small extra charge on top of the admission fee you can bathe in the warm mineral baths at the rear of gardens, built in 1784 for Louis XVI's troops. The public open-air baths are more appealing than the private covered ones.

Contact: 00 1 758 459 7155; diamondstlucia.com
Prices: £

• The best beaches in St Lucia

Visit a volcanic crater

Sulphur Springs Park is somewhat sensationally billed as the world's only drive-in volcano. In truth, you park up, then walk across to viewing points to take in the barren-looking wasteland of steaming and bubbling pools of this dormant volcano. It's still a surreal and impressive sight, and the air is filled with sulphurous odours. Your visit will be more rewarding if you gen up first in the decent information centre.

Insider tip: For a small extra charge, you can soak in pools by the park entrance. These are fed by hot (38 C) and supposedly health-giving black thermal waters. The idea is you apply mud to your body, let it dry, then wash it off.

Contact: 00 1 758 459 7200; soufrierefoundation.org
Prices: £

Make a chocolate bar

Hotel Chocolat – the chain of UK chocolate shops – owns the historic, cocoa-producing Rabot Estate in south-western St Lucia. You can sign up for a Tree to Bean tour at the estate's nurseries, where you get involved in the delicate grafting process which produces the desired Trinitario cocoa bean, and/or you can book the Bean to Bar experience, turning cocoa nibs into a bar of chocolate (surprisingly hard work).

Insider tip: There's a boutique hotel and restaurant on the estate. A meal in the first-rate restaurant is a must: most dishes, savoury and sweet, have cocoa in them in some form.

Contact: pre-booking required on 00 1 758 459 7966; thehotelchocolat.com
Prices: £££

• The best luxury resorts in St Lucia

Take a hike

In the island's 19,000 acres of rainforest you'll come across ferns as big as a house, wild orchids, perhaps waterfalls, and may hear (and could be very fortunate to spot) the endangered St Lucia parrot. Trails range from easy 90-minute strolls to challenging day-long hikes. Barre de L'Isle is the most easily accessible – it starts directly by the main cross-island road. Millet is best for birdwatching: go very early in the morning.

Insider tip: On almost all the trails you really need a guide. Most trail heads are hard to find (and in some cases reach), and it's easy to get lost once you've set off. Moreover, good guides will point out flora and fauna that you will otherwise overlook or miss.

Contact: Forestryeeunit.blogspot.com has trail summaries and phone numbers for booking guides, but the easiest option is to ask your hotel to arrange a hike that includes transport to the beginning of the trail.

Prices: £££ for a guide

Go jungle biking

Some eight miles of looping bike trails – some suitable for novices, others extremely taxing – have been created through the coconut groves, citrus fruit orchards and 18th-century ruins of the scenic Anse Mamin Plantation, which forms part of the Anse Chastanet Resort estate. Good-quality mountain bikes are provided, and you're given an introductory session before being let loose.

Insider tip: Make a day of it at Anse Chastanet Resort. After your exertions you could cool off in the sea at Anse Mamin beach, or the hotel's main black-sand resort beach, which has a great bar and restaurant and outstanding snorkelling just offshore (the dive centre rents out equipment).

Contact: 00 1 758 459 7755; bikestlucia.com
Prices: £££

• Reasons why St Lucia is the perfect Caribbean Island

Climb a Piton

Every year hundreds of tourists get to the top of the Gros Piton, one of St Lucia's pyramidical twin peaks, but you do need to be fit and reasonably agile. It's a long, very sweaty and in places hard, rocky climb, and not everyone who sets out manages to reach the 2,619ft summit. Weather permitting, the view from the top is as amazing as you might imagine.

Insider tip: For most climbers, the hike up and back takes about four hours. It's best to set off early in the morning when it's relatively cool. You'll need walking boots or stout trainers, a hat and plenty of water. Go with a guide, and ideally choose a day when it's dry.

Address: Start point for trail is at Fond Gens Libre, south of Soufrière

Contact: The Soufriere Foundation; Real St Lucia Tours (00 1 758 486 1561) offers all-inclusive guided tours, including hotel transfers

Prices: £££ with a guide