• Celebrate Carnival, Trinidad's most wild and colourful event. The world-renowned festivities climax at the beginning of Lent, although the run-up to Carnival starts immediately after Christmas when the Calypso tents open and the Calypsonians perform their latest compositions and arrangements.

• Listen to the big steel bands bang their drums around Queen's Park Savannah, a large park in Port of Spain. Panorama, the Grand Steel Drum (pan) tournament is staged a week before Carnival. The preliminaries and local finals in Tobago are also well worth a visit.

• Take to the streets of Port of Spain, San Fernando and Tunapuna with the islands' Muslim population to celebrate Hosay, which coincides with the Muslim New Year. Multi-coloured miniature mausoleums are paraded and then ritually offered up to the ocean.

• Treat your taste buds in the rapidly expanding town of Chaguanas where a wide range of West Indian culinary specialities are available.

• Take advantage of the excellent watersports facilities at the beaches along the north and east coasts of Trinidad, and all around Tobago. Speyside and Buccoo Reef, just off the southwest coast of Tobago, which has some of the Caribbean's finest reefs, offer exciting scuba-diving. Trips in glass-bottomed boats are very popular.

• Fish for Spanish mackerel, wahoo, kingfish, bonito, dolphin fish, yellow tuna, grouper, salmon and snapper in the islands' abundant waters. Both deep-sea and freshwater fishing are rewarding and there is an increasing number of boats available for hire.

• See some of the islands' 622 species of butterfly and over 700 species of orchid. The latter are best seen in Port of Spain's Royal Botanic Gardens (along with a wide selection of indigenous trees, shrubs, ferns and cacti). The Emperor Valley Zoo has a good selection of local wildlife.

• Spot the national bird, the scarlet ibis, in Trinidad's Nariva Swamp, the Aripo Savannah, the Asa Wright Nature Centre and the Caroni Bird Sanctuary where it is conserved. Hummingbirds are ubiquitous on Tobago and Little Tobago Island is highly recommended for twitchers.

• Catch a game of cricket, the major spectator sport, at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain, where the best national and international matches can be seen. Trinidadians are keen on racing, and the Arima Velodrome hosts a number of major meetings.

See Contact Addresses for further tourist information.