World-class Carnival, calypso, steel drum music, and two masters of the English language--author V. S. Naipaul and playwright/poet Derek Walcott, both Nobel Laureates--all connect artistically with Trinidad in the West Indies. Among Caribbean countries, Trinidad ranks as an arts powerhouse.

Yet for most Caribbean vacationers, Trinidad's small sister island in the twinned Republic of Trinidad and Tobago remains better known. That disparity follows an almost half-century-old national decision to promote tourism in picturesque, resource-poor Tobago while developing Trinidad's rich oil and natural-gas deposits.

Result is that tourism in Trinidad remains a "Trini thing," distinct, pleasurable, homegrown, and largely outside the international mainstream, driven by local investment with few cost-inflating imports. That, plus the six-to-one exchange rate between Trinidad and Tobago's dollar and the U.S. dollar, ensures Trinidad's position as the best year-round buy in Caribbean travel.

And even though farthest removed from North America and therefore more expensive to reach than, say, the Bahamas or Jamaica, among islands of the region Trinidad also ranks as the most complex and rewarding. Both American Airlines and BWIA West Indies Airways (800/538-2942, bwee.com) fly into Port-of-Spain. BWIA flies nonstop from New York, Washington, D.C., Toronto and Miami with recent prices of $400-$600 round-trip. American Airlines (800/433-7300, aa.com) flies nonstop from Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Port-of-Spain starting at $259 and $109 round-trip, respectively. (All prices in this article are stated in U.S. dollars. When calling Trinidad from the U.S., first dial 1, then the area code, 868, followed by the seven-digit number.)

Trinidad has the flowers, rain forest, peaks, fertile valleys, and beaches beautifully common to most of the Caribbean. But Trinidad also claims exceptional natural features such as La Brea Pitch Lake, the wildlife-filled Caroni and Nariva Swamps, the mountainside Asa Wright Nature Centre, the bird-breeding grounds of the Pointe-à-Pierre Wild Fowl Trust, and exquisite birding everywhere. Its mineral deposits make the country comparatively wealthy. Result is a rare widespread worldliness among English-speaking islanders.

This sophistication combines well with Trinidad's legendary blend of East Indians, Blacks, and mixed ethnicities. Trinidadians are one of the most racially tolerant people anywhere in the world, with a culture adapted from around the globe that, in everything from food to architecture, ranks distinctively as Trinidad's own.

Sun, sand, and sea may constitute the standard-issue Tropics. But colorful, one-of-a-kind, and affordable Trinidad supplies travelers with the gift-wrapped version.

A little geography

Trinidad lies at the southern cusp of the Caribbean archipelago. It's whisper-close to Venezuela. Morning weather reports announce fronts moving up from Brazil. Yet Trinidad is only a five-hour flight from New York, less than four hours from Miami.

The island is 50 miles north-south, 37 east-west, big enough to accommodate northern mountains that rise to 3,085 feet, with beaches that ring almost the entire coast (the best beaches skirt the Northern Range). The island is more than ten times the size of sister isle Tobago.

Metropolitan Port-of-Spain, with 300,000 of Trinidad's 1.3 million people, is the second-largest English-speaking capital in the region but by far the safest for visitors and the most cosmopolitan. The city rises from a protected gulf in the northwest. The vast industrial complex at Point Lisas that taps Trinidad's oil and natural-gas reserves lies 17 miles south along the coast. Much of the interior remains planted in sugar that controlled the economy from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. It's here, in dusty Chaguanas, where Naipaul first lived.

Port-of-Spain and north-coast beaches are where most first-time visitors want to be. The contrast between urban sophistication and rural style captures what Trinidad vacationing is about. Street life is at the heart of it. People teem colorfully dressed, prone to hang out--what Trinis call "liming"--even in town, stopping their cars along narrow streets to chat. Buildings are colorful and ornamented, often topped by hand-painted signs. Tropical yards remain in the heart of the city full of broad-leaf palms that rattle in wind and suggest the sound and rhythms of "pan," the steel drum music that backs the ubiquitous calypsos.