Guadeloupe

Getting There

Pointe-à-Pitre (PTP) is the gateway airport, but direct US service is genuinely limited. Air France flies Miami-PTP year-round (a Paris-based carrier routing through Miami, not a US carrier), and American Airlines flies it seasonally — confirm current dates before booking. From anywhere else in the US, expect a connection through Miami, San Juan, or Paris.

Documents: no visa needed for US tourists. Guadeloupe is a French overseas department, part of the EU and eurozone, but explicitly not part of the Schengen Area — different entry rules apply than mainland France. A 90-day-within-180-day allowance is commonly cited, but the exact relationship between that clock and mainland Schengen time couldn't be confirmed against a fully authoritative source in this research — verify directly if combining this trip with mainland Europe travel.

Ground Transport

• PTP airport to Le Moule: ~24km, ~24 minutes. PTP to Sainte-Anne: ~14 miles, ~24 minutes. Le Moule to Sainte-Anne: ~15km, ~16 minutes — both hubs sit close together on Grande-Terre.
• Rental car is the practical choice. Roads are normal EU-standard quality, not a "rough Caribbean roads" situation. A real public bus network exists (Le Moule-Sainte-Anne service runs), but frequency is low — roughly every 4 hours, Monday-Saturday — genuinely inconvenient for dawn-patrol flexibility.

When to Go & What to Pack

• Surf season runs November-April, driven by North Atlantic groundswell (NE/N direction, best wind offshore from south-southwest). Le Moule is the island's most consistent, most popular surf town. Summer (roughly May-October) runs flatter on the Atlantic-facing breaks, though tropical-system swells can occasionally bring surf July-November.
• Water temperature: warm year-round, roughly 79-84°F (26-29°C) — coolest around January, warmest around September. No wetsuit needed at any point.
• Hurricane season runs June 1-November 30, with real risk concentrated August-October. This isn't boilerplate caution — Guadeloupe took direct hits from both Irma and Maria in 2017.

Good to Know

• Language — a genuine practical difference from this site's other Caribbean zones: French is the official language, Guadeloupean Creole is the everyday home language for most locals. English is spoken mainly by tourism-industry workers in hotels and visitor-facing businesses, not the general population — a translation app is genuinely useful here.
• Safety: we were not able to independently confirm a current US State Department advisory level for Guadeloupe in this research pass (the relevant government pages didn't return usable results) — check travel.state.gov directly before booking rather than relying on a number here.
• Currency: Euro (€) — this is genuinely pricier than the site's Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic zones, real French/EU pricing (restaurant meals run roughly €5-40, hotels span from budget up to €200-700+/night at the top end).
• Emergency: 112 (general EU emergency), or the French system directly — 15 medical (SAMU), 17 police, 18 fire/rescue.
• Tap water: generally safe to drink, consistent with EU infrastructure — just avoid anything explicitly labeled "eau non potable."
• Connectivity: country code +590. Orange Caribbean, SFR Caribbean, and Digicel are the main carriers — standard EU-territory coverage.

Le Moule

Guadeloupe's first commercial port and the historic export outlet for Grande-Terre's sugar trade — today the island's most consistent, most popular Atlantic-facing surf town, anchored by a real working rum distillery on the old sugar estate.

Sainte-Anne

One of Grande-Terre's most popular resort towns, trading Le Moule's surf focus for beach-resort polish — and a genuine kitesurf hub at the protected Anse du Belley lagoon.

Local Secrets

Nine non-surf reasons this zone rewards the curious — a wind-scoured headland drawing 500,000 visitors a year, an island older than any other rock in the Lesser Antilles, and a nature reserve holding 9,500 native iguanas.

1. Pointe des Châteaux Sunrise or late afternoon; Dec-May for clearest sightlines

   An 11km limestone peninsula at Grande-Terre's easternmost tip, with wave-eroded sea stacks offshore and a large cross at the highest point — classified a protected natural site in 1997, drawing roughly 500,000 visitors a year.

   Photo: KoS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
2. Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Le Moule Year-round; Dec-May for comfortable walking

   A neoclassical church built 1825-1850 in imported sandstone and limestone with four Ionic columns, restored after hurricanes in 1932 and 1990 — the anchor of Le Moule's old sugar-port town center.

   Photo: LPLT / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
3. Distillerie Damoiseau Year-round for tours; Feb-June to see the harvest

   Founded 1942 on the former Bellevue sugar estate, still family-run — the last operating distillery on Grande-Terre, holding over half the Guadeloupean rum market and exporting to 40-plus countries.

   Photo: KoS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
4. Pointe de la Grande Vigie Clear dry-season days, Dec-May

   Grande-Terre's northernmost tip, 80-meter limestone cliffs compared in character to the Norman coast — on a clear day you can see Antigua (70km), Montserrat (80km), and La Désirade (50km) from the point.

   Photo: KoS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
5. La Désirade Dec-June for calmer seas

   An island 8km off Grande-Terre reached by boat from Saint-François — Columbus sighted and named it in 1493. At 145 million years old, it holds the oldest exposed rock in the Lesser Antilles.

   Photo: F6ITD / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
6. Petite-Terre Nature Reserve Dry season (Dec-June); access limited to two daily boat departures

   Two uninhabited islets 10km southeast of Pointe des Châteaux, made a national nature reserve in 1998 — home to roughly 9,500 native Lesser Antillean iguanas, a species now largely confined to this reserve and Désirade.

   Photo: Mélina ROBIN / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
7. Fort Fleur d'Épée Year-round; late afternoon for the ramparts view

   An 18th-century coastal fort overlooking Grande Baie in Le Gosier — a battery from 1763, converted to a fort in 1792, captured by the English in 1794 and retaken by French forces the same year. Holds underground galleries and over 200 engravings dated 1812-2002.

   Photo: Enrevseluj / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
8. Mémorial ACTe Year-round, indoor museum

   Built on the site of the former Darboussier sugar factory in Pointe-à-Pitre, this slavery-history memorial opened in 2015 — 7,800 m² plus a 2.2-hectare memorial garden, winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize in 2017.

   Photo: Gregor Julien Straube / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
9. Carnaval in Le Moule Early January through Ash Wednesday

   A real, documented street-carnival parade tradition in Le Moule itself, with costumed groups (mas) — part of Guadeloupe's winter-long Carnival season culminating before Lent.

   Photo: Auregann / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Disclosure & how this page works.

Today, the “Search Vrbo rentals” and “Search Booking.com stays” links on this page are affiliate links — every vendor listing link is still a plain courtesy link. As partnerships with these local businesses come online, more links (and discount codes, where Secrets of Surf Travel benefits from their use) may earn us a commission, and this page will keep saying so plainly. Coverage is never for sale: nobody on this page paid to be here, and nobody can.

Every listing was researched in 2026 and is being verified in person. Prices, hours, and policies change — treat them as strong starting points and confirm directly with the business. And per the No-Reveal Code: you will find no surf spots on this page, ever.