St Helena travel guide
If you’ve arrived on St Helena, you’re very far from home. Sitting in exile in the middle of the South Atlantic, nearly 2,000km from the West African coast, the dwindling population of ‘Saints’ live in the shadow of its massive basalt escarpments. Since the airport opened in the 2010s, far fewer visitors have come than anticipated.
In the island’s halo of disintegrating shipwrecks, whale sharks and devil rays make good use of waters teeming with luminous, moon-shaped butterflyfish.![]()
But the island’s forbidding nature is key to its life. It is on the sheerest of cliffs where rare seabirds rest, and on the dizzying ridges shrouded in mist where the last endemic life thrives. Reforestation efforts are restoring native nature, where once it was grazed to barrenness, and new species are still being discovered. From your first warm welcome at Jamestown (perhaps over a cup of one of the world’s most sought-after coffees) to the last clifftop sunset, our holidays with local guides ensure that, though you might be far from home, you’re never far from a friendly face.
Read our St Helena travel guide for more details.
Read our St Helena travel guide for more details.
St Helena is…
a pocket of hospitality and conservation in the middle of the ocean.
St Helena isn’t…
a bad place to be exiled, after all.
St Helena map & highlights
From the high central ridge, the St Helena landscape slides down in wind-whipped slopes. Most of its native flora was grazed away by goats (it’s now illegal to keep them free-roaming), leaving it looking forbiddingly barren, but there are a few pockets remaining of its formerly glorious native forest, and if you look closely, you’ll see endemic wire birds – its national bird – scuttle along the plains. Jamestown, the capital, is found on the north of the island, and the majority of residents live in the area. The rest of the island can be toured by 4x4 or on foot via a snakes-and-ladders board of steep wooden steps.
1.
Diana’s Peak National Park
2. Jamestown
3. Longwood House
4. St Helena Marine Protected Area
5. Plantation House
6. The South
2. Jamestown
3. Longwood House
4. St Helena Marine Protected Area
5. Plantation House
6. The South
Diana’s Peak National Park
1. Diana’s Peak National Park
The island’s national park covers its central highlands, and the last remaining forest – just 16 hectares of it. Since rain is rare, these slow-growing native species are adept at pulling water from clouds and supply most of the island’s drinking water this way, in lieu of other water sources. Look far for panoramic views. Look near, and you might see the peak’s endemic yellow spiky woodlouse.
Jamestown
2. Jamestown
Crammed into a narrow valley, Jamestown, the capital, is the location of historic buildings and a museum full of shipwreck finds. You’ll get used to greeting everyone you pass – cars, pedestrians and the fairy terns nesting on the window ledges. There are fewer people to greet on Jacob’s Ladder, the 699-step climb out of town with amazing views, and a certificate for those who complete the journey.
Longwood House
3. Longwood House
Napoleon did not enjoy his tenure as master of Longwood House, the draughty manor to which he was exiled, and lived his last days, between 1815 and 1821. Now a museum, Longwood House has been restored to show how the emperor of France lived, featuring his beds, bath and goldfish ponds. His original grave (he was moved to Paris) can be found in a flower-filled valley where he used to take his walks.
St Helena Marine Protected Area
4. St Helena Marine Protected Area
Popular with pelagic marine life, and therefore popular with divers too, the waters around St Helena don’t have coral reefs, but they do have shipwrecks populated by many fish. Migrating humpbacks pass the island, whilst gatherings of equal numbers of male and female whale sharks around St Helena suggest this might be a breeding ground for the species. If so, it’s the first ever discovered.
Plantation House
5. Plantation House
Plantation House was built by the East India Company who governed the island from the 1650s, employing enslaved people on the island. The house is still the home of St Helena’s governor, who must share the honour with Jonathan, a giant Seychelles tortoise. Jonathan is currently the oldest living land animal in existence, at over 190 years old, living through the reigns of eight British monarchs and meeting some of them, too.
The South
6. The South
Whilst most Saints live in the north of the island, the south features one of the island’s only sandy beach – Sandy Bay – plus hiking trails to the distinctive rock pillars Lot and Lot’s Wife, which add to the island’s dramatic topography. There’s no swimming, as the water is too rough, but there’s lots of looking: for nesting masked boobies, at the babies’ toes – a weird endemic plant – and at the dramatic scenery.
St Helena holiday, tailor made
A remote island adventure in the footsteps of Napoleon
From
£3400
12 days
inc UK flights
St Helena and South African winelands
Discover remote St. Helena & enjoy the best of the Cape
From
£6775
20 days
ex flights
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Best time to go to St Helena
The residents are ‘Saints’, their patois is known as ‘Saint’, and the island’s name is pronounced ‘Sintelena’. ![]()
The most popular time to visit St Helena is during the austral summer, from November to March. Humpbacks migrate past the island from June to December. Whale sharks visit between December and March to feed on blooming plankton.
The island is caught in the crossfire of the trade winds. It can see very changeable weather every day but rarely experiences extreme weather. It has a mild and pleasant climate, with little rain – though up in the central highlands it can be several degrees cooler than the coast, and the peaks are often in cloud. There are no clear seasons. Winter (April to October) is a little wetter and cooler, swelling the size of the island’s quirky heart-shaped waterfall.
The island is caught in the crossfire of the trade winds. It can see very changeable weather every day but rarely experiences extreme weather. It has a mild and pleasant climate, with little rain – though up in the central highlands it can be several degrees cooler than the coast, and the peaks are often in cloud. There are no clear seasons. Winter (April to October) is a little wetter and cooler, swelling the size of the island’s quirky heart-shaped waterfall.
St Helena Weather Chart
MIN °C
MAX °C
RAIN (mm)
JAN
18
22
53
FEB
19
23
68
MAR
19
23
90
APR
18
22
63
MAY
17
21
71
JUN
16
19
87
JUL
15
18
84
AUG
14
17
68
SEP
15
18
54
OCT
15
18
43
NOV
15
19
30
DEC
16
20
37
How to get to St Helena
St Helena can be reached from South Africa. There are flights from Johannesburg, plus flights and Cape Town during peak season (December-March). The direct flight link means that a St Helena holiday can be combined neatly with a trip to South Africa.
Being a remote island in the middle of an ocean, poor weather can delay and cancel flights. But consider yourself lucky: before the airport was built your only option was a five-day Royal Mail Ship from Cape Town which travelled once a month carrying supplies and passengers. St Helena is part of a British Overseas Territory comprised of the three islands of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Whilst they’re all in the South Atlantic they are thousands of kilometres apart. You can fly from St Helena to Ascension. Tristan da Cunha still can only be reached by ship.
Being a remote island in the middle of an ocean, poor weather can delay and cancel flights. But consider yourself lucky: before the airport was built your only option was a five-day Royal Mail Ship from Cape Town which travelled once a month carrying supplies and passengers. St Helena is part of a British Overseas Territory comprised of the three islands of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Whilst they’re all in the South Atlantic they are thousands of kilometres apart. You can fly from St Helena to Ascension. Tristan da Cunha still can only be reached by ship.
Why visit St Helena?
Don’t pass up on local delicacies – a slice of loquat pie made with local endemic fruit, home-made black pudding, some of the world’s most sought-after coffee, or gin from the distillery.![]()
St Helena has just over 4,000 residents and gets just a few hundred visitors at a time in peak season. The island’s population has been dropping through the decades – many leave seeking work, to Ascension, England and the Falkland Islands. The airport was supposed to revitalise the island through tourism money. But the promised tourist numbers haven’t arrived, leaving many families with no choice but to seek employment elsewhere. Responsible Travel’s St Helena holidays employ local people as guides and use locally-owned accommodation, a step towards widening the options available to residents.
There is still huge potential for tourism on St Helena thanks, in part, to the work the island is doing to protect its flora and fauna. Whilst most native birds were lost thanks to introduced predators, there are still native flora and invertebrates. There are projects to restore the island’s cloud forest and replant native species. New species are being discovered all the time, whilst old populations are recovering. Now is a great time to come and see this beautiful place as it’s restored to its former glory.
There is still huge potential for tourism on St Helena thanks, in part, to the work the island is doing to protect its flora and fauna. Whilst most native birds were lost thanks to introduced predators, there are still native flora and invertebrates. There are projects to restore the island’s cloud forest and replant native species. New species are being discovered all the time, whilst old populations are recovering. Now is a great time to come and see this beautiful place as it’s restored to its former glory.
St Helena and the transatlantic slave trade
When ground was cleared for the construction of St Helena's airport in the 2000s, it revealed a mass grave containing the bodies of 9,000 people in Rupert's Valley. These were the remains of formerly enslaved Africans who had been victims of the transatlantic slave trade. This discovery is one of the most significant traces of the slave trade to exist anywhere in the world, and showed a first generation enslaved people who had been part of the middle passage journey from West Africa to the West Indies. Slavery had existed on the island since the 17th century, when British occupiers settled on the island, bringing their existing enslaved people with them. In the 1810s, roughly a third of island inhabitants were enslaved people. Slavery was finally abolished on St Helena in 1839.
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