If you are looking for a basic, clean and affordable guesthouse in St. Lucia, I cannot recommend Bay Guesthouse highly enough.

It's located in Gros Islet (famous for their Friday Night 'Jump Up' party in the streets every Friday). As you can see from the photos, the beach is literally next-door (what the photo doesn't show you is that literally 60 seconds walk in the other direction is a really long, white sand beach that extends as far as Pigeon Island National Park).

The Guesthouse is far from the International airport, but can be easily reached by taking a shared public bus (actually a minivan) from the airport to Castries (the capital of St. Lucia) and from Castries to Gros Islet. Total travel time is around 2 hours (although you're in the Caribbean, so be prepared for things to be slow, especially on a Sunday).

Will (who is English) and Stephanie (who is French) are simply delightful (and so are their dogs, who were absolutely adored by the guests I... more