Nassau · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
Nassau is expensive and knows it, but jitneys, fish fry and the mailboats keep it possible.
Sleep downtown or over-the-hill
Small guesthouses sit behind Bay Street and up the hill; Cable Beach and Paradise Island are resort-priced. Hostel beds are scarce, so book well ahead.
What a day costs
The Bahamian dollar is pegged one to one with the US dollar. Bed $60–110, food $25–45 if you eat at Arawak Cay, jitneys $3. Reckon $90–160.
Jitneys and mailboats
Numbered jitney minibuses cost a little over a dollar, exact change, and stop by early evening. Mailboats from Potter's Cay are the cheap way to the Out Islands.
Free by day
Junkanoo Beach is a five-minute walk from the cruise terminal, the Queen's Staircase is cut sixty-odd feet through solid limestone, and Fort Charlotte's grounds are open.
Arawak Cay fish fry
A row of painted shacks west of downtown selling conch salad and cracked conch until late; the cheapest meal in Nassau and the most sociable.