Shopping Overview

The island's best-known products are artwork and wood carvings; clothing and household articles made from batik and silk-screen fabrics, designed and printed in island workshops; and clay pottery. You can also take home straw hats and baskets and locally grown cocoa, coffee, and spices.

Areas & Malls

Along the harbor in Castries, you can see rambling structures with bright-orange roofs that house several markets, which are open from 6 AM to 5 PM Monday through Saturday. Saturday morning is the busiest and most colorful time to shop. For more than a century, farmers' wives have gathered at the Castries Market to sell produce -- which, alas, you can't import to the United States. But you can bring back spices (such as cocoa, turmeric, cloves, bay leaves, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, mace, and vanilla essence), as well as bottled hot pepper sauces -- all of which cost a fraction of what you'd pay back home. The Craft Market, adjacent to the produce market, has aisles and aisles of baskets and other handmade straw work, rustic brooms made from palm fronds, wood carvings and leather work, clay pottery, and souvenirs -- all at affordable prices. The Vendor's Arcade, across the street from the Craft Market, is a maze of stalls and booths where you can find handicrafts among the T-shirts and costume jewelry.

Gablewoods Mall, on the Gros Islet Highway in Choc Bay, a couple of miles north of downtown Castries, has about 35 shops that sell groceries, wines and spirits, jewelry, clothing, crafts, books and overseas newspapers, music, souvenirs, household goods, and snacks. Along with 54 boutiques, restaurants, and other businesses that sell services and supplies, a large supermarket is the focal point of each J. Q.'s Shopping Mall; one is at Rodney Bay and another at Vieux Fort.

The duty-free shopping areas are at Pointe Seraphine, an attractive Spanish-motif complex on Castries Harbour with more than 20 shops, and La Place Carenage, an inviting, three-story complex on the opposite side of the harbor. You can also find duty-free items in a few small shops at the arcade at the Rex St. Lucian hotel in Rodney Bay and, of course, in the departure lounge at Hewanorra International Airport. You must present your passport and airline ticket to purchase items at the duty-free price.