Although the rainy season usually announces itself some time in May, there are still many sunny days to pack in plenty of fun, especially since it’s the season for Barbados’ biggest summer celebration – Crop Over (pictured above). The festivities sprawl across several months, kicking off in May and culminating in a glittering finale first weekend in August.

Crop Over History

Back in plantation days Crop Over celebrated the end of a successful sugar cane harvest for the planters, and the end of the most backbreaking part of the year for the enslaved population (and later, for labourers). As the importance of the sugar industry waned, so too did Crop Over, fizzling out in the 1940s.

Fast-forward to the 1970s, and Crop Over was revived, to attract more tourists in what is usually the ‘slow season’, as well as to revive Barbadians’ interest in their heritage.