We recently spent a fantastic week on the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. We were attracted to Saint Martin for the fact that it is half French and half Dutch, therefore in theory combining two international trips into one, European and Caribbean. Throw in all the Americans there and you have a real cultural cocktail, which is great for visiting Australians.

Saint Martin is certainly not an island visited by a lot of Australians and therefore we were commonly greeted with "...wow, you've come a long way", which would then follow with "...how long did it take you to get here?".

Getting there did take a long time and it is certainly not a path well travelled by other Australians, hence I hope that this post is perhaps helpful for others who would like to visit Saint Martin departing from Australia.

Forget the Travel Agents Original Quotes

As the trip from Sydney to Saint Martin is not a popular route, you will find travel agents giving you quotes for fights and hotel stays of up to $10,000 per person! And worse still the flights will be on routes with up to 44 hours travel time! Most agents have flights departing Sydney to LA, and then LA to Miami, Miami to some other island.  

After some investigation, we found the best path was to fly Sydney direct to New York (there is a quick LA stop to clear customs), spend some time in New York and then from JFK airport you can connect direct to Saint Martin (SXM) daily with AA. There are about 7 flights a day from JFK to SXM yet there is only 1 direct flight in the morning which takes about 4.5 hours. The other flights have various stop overs with the worst getting up to 12 hours travel time. Likewise flying back from SXM to JFK there is only 1 daily direct flight. Staying in New York also means you are on the same time zone as Saint Martin which means you only have one time zone to adjust to during your trip. Qantas has a daily direct flight to New York from Sydney. The daily AA flights between JFK and SXM however cannot be booked over the Internet by Australians. I don't know why this is the case, but the AA web site wont allow it. However if you have the flight number and details you can take these into a travel agent and they can book them for you. By travelling this path of Sydney-New York-Saint Martin, you will get a shorter travel time with time for a stop over in New York. Flying back to JFK from SXM you will need a one-night stop over before connecting to the Qantas flight back to Sydney. The good news is JFK has heaps of motels near the airport that are great for this.                

Saint Martin is a beautiful Caribbean island paradise, and now that you have arrived you want to enjoy yourself right. 

Saint Martin's Not So Obvious Travel Tips

1. Fly into New York and connect to Saint Martin.

2. Do arrive 3 hours before boarding at the Juliana airport (SXM).

3. Ask the local taxi drivers the price before getting in the car. All taxis trips are fixed price with no meters, so you need to ask up front or risk tourist tax at the other end. 

4. Beware the mosquitoes in the evening. They are certainly not like the mosquitoes here in Australia. They are smaller and quieter, yet manage to pack more of a bite! You wont know that you are being bitten until the next day when you are covered in welts.   

5. Buy crates of bottled water for your hotel room. The island's water is supplied by a desalination plant, which tastes nothing like Evian. 

6. The Caribbean lonely planet guide is somewhat out of date and seemed to have numerous errors. It is still a helpful guide. 

7. Get plenty of US$1 dollar bills from Australia for tipping. You will find in the US and Saint Martin tipping is expected and if you have nothing but 10 and 20 dollar bills when you need to tip people small amounts ($2-$3 dollars) at places like bars, then your stuck.

8. Do take a taxi tour of the island. It is only about US$30 an hour and well worth it.

9. Do visit the Sunset Beach Bar during the day to see the planes land and then stay still the sun sets.

10. Do eat at the LoLo's at Grand Case. Fantastic huge lobsters on an open BBQ with rich garlic butter. Yum!

11. A lot of people on the French side will take US dollars as a 1:1 swap for Euro, when paying for food and drink.

12. Do eat at the French restaurants along Orient beach.

13. Avoid peak seasons and cyclone season. See Lonely planet guide.

14. Do use trip advisor for getting a hotel in NY. I was really amazed by how good the trip advisor site was. 

15. Don't buy any duty free alcohol before you fly to Saint martin. Saint Martin is tax free. 

16. Take cash with you when you visit the french side, as there is a real shortage of ATM's.