Seven-Day Three Guianas Explorer

Your journey begins at Cheddi Jagan International Airport. After clearing customs, you're met by your guide and transferred to your Georgetown hotel, a 40- to 70-minute drive through Guyana's coastal landscape.

The remainder of the day is yours. Depending on arrival time and energy, you may explore the streets near your hotel or rest. Your guide will confirm the next day's early departure before leaving you to settle in. We recommend arriving in Guyana on a Friday or Saturday, as the scenic flight to Kaieteur Falls operates only on fixed days (Saturday and Sunday).

The morning begins early. You're transferred to Ogle Airport for a scenic flight over unbroken rainforest to Kaieteur National Park. The 50-minute flight reveals the scale of Guyana's interior, a vast roadless expanse of primary forest.

At Kaieteur, you have approximately two hours on the ground. The falls drop 226 meters in a single plunge into a gorge surrounded by primary forest. The site is undeveloped but well maintained, with viewpoints providing different perspectives. Your guide provides context on the geology, the endemic golden rocket frog found only at this site and the white-chinned swift population that nests behind the curtain of falling water.

You return to Georgetown by mid-afternoon for a guided city tour: the Botanical Gardens, St. George's Cathedral (one of the world's tallest wooden churches) and Stabroek Market, a cast-iron Victorian market hall on a site trading since 1792.

By late afternoon, you transfer to the international airport for your commercial flight to Paramaribo. Upon arrival in Suriname, you're met and transferred to your hotel in the historic center.

After breakfast, your guide leads a walking tour of Paramaribo's inner city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site distinguished by its concentration of wooden colonial architecture. You'll visit Independence Square, the Palm Garden, Fort Zeelandia and the waterfront, where centuries of Dutch, Creole and Javanese influence are visible in a single streetscape. The route includes the Basilica, Mosque and Synagogue standing side by side.

In the afternoon, you travel to Peperpot Nature Park, a former coffee plantation now returned to secondary forest. The site is known for birdlife, toucans, parrots, herons and occasional sightings of capuchin monkeys and sloths. The visit concludes with a boat trip on the Suriname River, where pink belly dolphins are sometimes seen.

You return to Paramaribo by early evening.

Breakfast is served early. By 7:00 AM, you depart Paramaribo for the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Albina, Suriname's easternmost town. At the river border, you cross the Marowijne by pirogue, a local covered motorboat, into Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana. Your guide handles all border formalities on both sides.

Saint-Laurent was the administrative center of France's penal colony system from 1852 to 1953. You tour the former prison complex, including the transportation barracks, director's residence and solitary confinement cells. Your guide provides context on the approximately 70,000 prisoners sent here.

From Saint-Laurent, you continue by road to Cayenne, French Guiana's capital. The afternoon includes a city tour: the Place des Palmistes, the colonial-era prefecture and the central market, where Hmong, Creole and Brazilian vendors reflect the territory's diversity.

By evening, you reach Kourou, 60 kilometers west of Cayenne, where you'll be based for the next two nights.

You depart Kourou harbor by catamaran for a full-day voyage to the Îles du Salut (Salvation Islands), the offshore site of France's most notorious penal colony. The three islands, Île Royale, Île Saint-Joseph and Devil's Island, lie 15 kilometers offshore.

Devil's Island, where political prisoners including Alfred Dreyfus were held in isolation, is closed to visitors, but you'll circumnavigate the island while your guide recounts its history. You land on Île Royale to explore the prison ruins, including the director's quarters, hospital, chapel and cell blocks.

You continue to Île Saint-Joseph, where solitary confinement cells occupy the island's interior. Time is allowed for walking the perimeter paths.

Lunch is available for purchase at the restaurant on Île Royale before the return crossing to Kourou, typically arriving by mid-afternoon.

This morning's focus is the Centre Spatial Guyanais, Europe's spaceport and the launch site for Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets. The facility is active and heavily secured; passport checks are required at entry. The three-hour guided tour (conducted in French, with translation from your guide) includes mission control, rocket assembly buildings and launch pads. The complex covers 700 square kilometers of coastal rainforest.

After the space center visit and lunch in Kourou, you begin the overland return to Suriname: road transfer to Saint-Laurent, pirogue crossing of the Marowijne and onward drive to Paramaribo. The full journey takes five to six hours including border formalities.

You arrive in Paramaribo by early evening and check back into your hotel.

Depending on your departure flight time, breakfast is included at your hotel. Three hours before your scheduled flight, you're transferred to Johan Adolf Pengel International Airport.

Onward departures can be arranged from any of the three countries depending on your routing.