Best Things to do in The Bahamas, including Pigs, Sharks & Atlantis!
Visiting the Bahamas was one of the best trips I have ever taken. y fiancé and I have made it habit to try and visit a different place in the beautiful Caribbean every year and we hands down the Bahamas is one of the best!
I'm going to cut to the chase. Here are the things you HAVE to do while you are there!
1. Swim with the Pigs!
Hands down, do this! Swimming with the pigs is a big reason I decided to adventure down to the Bahamian islands. Not to mention the never ending beauty. This excursion did not disappoint. It was such an incredible experience, I wrote a whole other page about this excursion and what to expect:
2. Swim with the Sharks!
This was a part of our swimming with the pigs excursion and it was AWESOME! I chose the full day, more expensive excursion because it included this! This was a bucket list item for me and it really was so cool. It was very laid back and I didn't feel threatened at all as the sharks are nurse sharks and very docile. More about this here.
3. Visit Atlantis! (if not stay there)
Okay where are all my Mary-Kate and Ashley fans at? This was a little girls dream of mine! Even as an adult, my fiancé and I had SO MUCH FUN! There is a waterpark, casino, epic aquarium and lots of yummy restaurants. We bought a day pass that included food and access to their beach. We spent the first half of the day being kids at heart at the waterpark. We got to do the famous slide that does through the shark tank. I wish I had a photo of it, but it was about $40 USD to purchase their professional one.. no thank you, I'll keep the memory instead. We had lunch, then headed to the beach. The beach is of course, gorgeous. The sand is so white, course but soft. After getting lots of sun, we headed to the aquarium where lives the biggest sting ray.. (manta ray..not sure?) that I have ever seen! It was so cool! We were in wet swimsuits so we didn't stay for dinner. But there was a Nobu there and I totally wish we had proper clothes to dine in there. I highly recommend purchases a day pass here if you don't stay here. Mitch and I kept saying how we would love to come back and stay here one day. It is SO family friendly while still being super fun for adults.
https://www.viator.com/tours/Nassau/Aquaventure-Oasis-at-Atlantis-with-Lunch/d420-58311P1
4. Go to the local Daq Shaq (Daiquiri Shack)!
We got so lucky with this place. It was literally across the street from our hotel in Nassau. (Highly recommend staying at Melia or Baha Mar!) All the ingredients are fresh and organic. One day we actually got there in the morning for a drink (vacay mode) and we saw them bringing in crates of fresh fruit for the day. It is a family business and they are very friendly and fun! Something that is so cool about this place is that people from all over the world have left some kind of object behind to mark where they are from. There are t-shirts of many U.S. colleges, firefighter and police badges, etc.! Make sure to bring something from home you would like to contribute to the walls of this place. The drinks are DELICIOUS! I highly recommend you get the large! We ended up one day getting one for the taxi ride over to Atlantis on Paradise Island. The driver didn't seem to mind. Very laid back place to visit!
5. Visit a Local Non-Touristy Island!
This was a part of our pig and shark excursion and I am so glad it was. This was a very cool experience to leave the resort life behind and see how local islanders live. We got to walk the streets to a restaurant and have the catch of the day for lunch. We saw local children playing soccer barefoot and got to jump off an old dock into the bluest water. This place was so quiet and so relaxing. This is definitely a place that doesn't draw a lot of tourism due to the fact that it is a very simple way of life here. But I couldn't get over how beautiful it still was.