Soufrière is a small town on St Lucia’s west coast, about an hour from Vieux Fort, and further along the windy road that passes Laborie, both of which you can read more about here. I visited in June 2025 while travelling the Caribbean on a budget.
Street scene in Soufrière.
Soufrière has long been a town of significance on Saint Lucia – indeed during the days of French rule, Soufrière was the capital of the colony. When the British took over they moved the administration to Castries, in the north of the island. It’s a grid pattern of very vibrant buildings of various colours, mostly two storey with many a fancy balcony to be seen. Its surrounded by lush forested hills, and looking down at the town from them reveals it’s, to use a phrase so hated by travel writers for at least two decades, nestled quaintly between the bottom of the hills and a wide, sweeping, crater-like bay. It’s a very aesthetic place to wile away a bit of time.
The promenade in Soufrière, near the port.
It’s set close to the two Pitons, mountains, on the flag, although Petit Piton is nearer and blocks most of the view of Gros Piton. Apparently you can climb them but they’re quite technical and also, so humid, you’d be a sweaty mess by the end; we did not. I did of course sit at a beachfront bar holding a bottle of Piton beer with the view of Petit Piton in the background. Because I’m cheesy like that. The beer itself was mid, the setting definitely wasn’t.
Soufrière’s Beaches
The beach in the town centre isn’t one of those pristine tropical beaches that Saint Lucia is famous for; the best beaches in the area, Anse Chastanet and Anse Mamin, are three miles from Soufrière but only accessible either down a very undulating and narrow gravelly road – a journey not conducive by foot even without the heat and humidity – or a taxi tour boat from Soufrière Pier. The boat would cost about $70 USD; we were quoted a taxi along the road for $50 USD. Both of these are horrendous for a 3 mile journey.
The town beach at Soufrière.
Hence we stayed in the town centre. It was nice enough, even if the waves were a bit strong and the ground fell steeply, giving not much scope for the non-swimmer in me to do more than stay at the very edge. Laura had a few dips, and even found a pair of sunglasses on one swim. Other tourists, and there were a handful of them, chose to hire speedboats or similar, and go snorkelling further out to sea. Clearly I did not do that either; I just sat on a towel and listened to podcasts. It’s rare I switch off for long enough to do that. It was noticeable that there were only a handful of tourists though.
Accommodation and Food in Soufrière
The hotel we were staying in (La Villa des Pitons) was on the road heading north out of town, partway up a very steep hill. It’s built directly on the side of the hill, and blends in to the forested slopes as it’s predominantly painted green. It has several floors, though most of them not that large, and getting around it felt quite like a rabbit warren. With the exception that much of it is open to the elements, or at least it’s very ‘airy’, with the main floor containing the reception and dining area cosplaying as a huge balcony.
Our room in the hotel in Soufrière; the view from the large windows was pretty cool.
The view from the balcony edge is stunning, as it looks out over the nearby trees so you get a sweeping vista of the rainforest, the colourful town below, the sea, and of course a direct view of the Pitons. Indeed we had a similar view from our room, which was built on two levels – downstairs was the bathroom and a small kitchen and dining area, while upstairs in a kind of mezzanine were two large beds. The wall facing away from the hillside was basically just window so we had a great view without even needing to leave the room.
During the height of the cruise season, the hotel gets absolutely rammed and both that large restaurant area, and the lido a couple of stairwells away up the hill, are very popular. On our visit we were only the guests, the kitchen was closed, and the pool was scattered with fallen leaves. In addition, their card machine wasn’t working, and they didn’t accept Paypal payments. That said, the owners of the hotel did also run a restaurant (Michael’s @ Jen Mwen) in the centre of town, very close to the pier, where we could also pay the hotel bill, so we made sure we paid them a visit or two.
Overview of Soufrière from the balcony of our hotel.
In fact the owners of the hotel fell over themselves to make us feel welcome. This included one free shot of local rum (Bounty) each and discounted food at their restaurant, and a couple of free car rides. The restaurant itself was pretty nice; we had a lovely meal of curried chicken with a whole host of sides on our first full day, which we ate on the balcony overlooking the seafront. The walls were decorated with messages from previous visitors – it’s definitely a popular place.
The outside of the restaurant in Soufrière associated with the hotel.
We ate quite well in Soufrière, including a very nice stew from a town centre bar/cafe, staffed with slightly sullen dinnerladies. We also had like a kind of barbecued chicken there another night. There was also a slightly upmarket bar restaurant in the town centre where we had some lovely cocktails. In fact the only problem we had with the food here was, well, finding it in the first place. Once the sun went down, the shutters tended to come up, and finding anywhere that was open and serving food even past 7pm proved quite problematic. Evidently lunch is a more important meal of the day here than the evening meal. In addition, the bars on the beach didn’t have consistent opening hours; one of them – a large hexagonal beach hut with stools at the bar – was open some, but not all, of the days we were there (and we were there midweek; this wasn’t a Sunday thing). It was all slightly confusing.
St Lucia Sulphur Springs
Like many of the islands in this part of the Caribbean, Saint Lucia is very volcanic, and actively so. So there’s a lot of places where mineral-rich hot water can be reached & tapped, and on Saint Lucia, just south of Soufrière and near the Pitons, a small open-air spa resort has been set up to take advantage of the mineral-rich hot water that runs off the volcanoes.
One of the pools at the sulphur springs in St Lucia. It was shallow enough to stand but deep enough to swim.
It’s set directly on the slopes of the volcano so everything feels quite rocky and barren around. It’s quite touristy, noticeably so, and if memory serves it costs about $12 USD to enter. You can pay a bit extra and take a tour to the crater, but we did not. The spa area itself is all in the open air, and on our visit there were a couple of very short but quite heavy sudden rain showers, but if you’re in the pools anyway you’re already wet so it’s no big deal. There’s in fact several pools to sit/walk around in, and there’s no real difference between them; it’s just a better vibe to have a series of smaller pools rather than one big one, I suppose. Pretty much all the pools were the same depth – 4′ / 1.2m – with stone-carved benches in the water so you could sit down & be submerged to your chest. The temperature of most of the pools were around 100°F / 38°C, and the list of regulations suggested not spending more than 10 minutes in the water.
There’s also a covered shelter to store your bags, clothes, etc, three or four wooden shacks that serve as changing rooms, and open-air showers behind the shacks. There’s also several staff on-hand to look after you and, if you want, cover you in clay that acts as an exfoliant/scrub, so when you go back into the water, you get all nicely zingy and smooth. And yes, the area did smell faintly of sulphur but honestly, not strong enough for you to really notice and distract you. Though my swimwear (lycra daisy-motif crop-top and leggings I’d normally wear for running) took a couple of washes back home to get all the aroma out.
Another part of the sulphur springs; it was kind of curved.
On our visit it was bustling but not that full – there were quite a few people milling around but there never seemed to be more than a couple of people in each pool at any one time. Occasionally a minibus-load of people would wander in, but you could tell they were all on a tour as it was clear from the conversations they were having that they couldn’t stay very long. Conversely, we must have been there for maybe an hour and a half.
The green forested landscape on the way back from the sulphur springs. Tyrannosaurus not pictured.
Our walk back to the main road, via a coconut stall, took us past some rainforest with views out towards the nearby hills, covered with foliage. Laura said it felt a bit Jurassic – what she imagined the world would have looked like while the dinosaurs were dominant. It was definitely a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Soufrière as a Movie Set
One final point about Soufrière. For those of you Brits of my age, you may recall a mid-80s movie called ‘Water’, a mildly satirical comedy about a Caribbean island wanting independence – it had Michael Caine and Billy Connolly in it, as well as cameos by two Beatles and Eric Clapton. Well, most of the on-location shots were filmed here, and when I mentioned it to the hotel owner who gave us a lift up to the sulphur springs, he said that not only did he remember it all being shot, but he even managed to get Michael Caine’s autograph.
Another street scene in Soufrière.
Despite it being one of those movies I watched on repeat back when I was young enough to do that sort of thing (I guess I’d’ve been about 13 or 14 at the time), I have to say I didn’t immediately recognise it, though perhaps because it’s been so long since I saw the movie I’ve kind of forgotten some of the background scenery.