Te Amo Beach — Bonaire

Bonaire day route

Your first day on Bonaire

Length
1 day, from an early-afternoon landing
Total distance
16.4 km (10 mi)
Travel time
± 40 min

Published

The short answer

The arrival day is not a rest day. It is the day with the most decisions that cost money and the most that go wrong later if you skip them. Most flights land in the early afternoon, which leaves five or six usable hours. That is enough for the car, the fee, the food and a first swim, and still the sun going down behind Klein Bonaire.

Starts at
the supermarket on Kaya Industria
Rental car
from the airport
Length
half a day

What is left over is the afternoon below. It looks unambitious on paper and it is deliberately so — the sun is stronger than it feels at four, you have been travelling, and the good snorkelling is not going anywhere.

What do you do on which day?

Day 1 — Landing day, from the supermarket to the sunset

4 stops · by car · 4 h 30 min · ± 40 min travelling

Do the errands between two and three, when it is too hot for a beach anyway, and keep the water and the view for the end of the afternoon. Everything below is inside Kralendijk and Belnem, under 15 kilometres (9 miles) in total, and nothing that needs navigating on your first day.

  1. Afternoon

    2.2 km · ± 5 min

  2. 8.3 km · ± 20 min

  3. 5.9 km · ± 15 min

  4. Evening

What this day asks of you

What this day asks of you — Your first day on Bonaire
What it costs Fixed: USD 75 visitor entry tax per person aged 13 and over, USD 10 for children up to 12. Add USD 40 nature fee per person per calendar year as soon as you enter the sea; children under 13 are exempt. A rental car, fuel and meals come on top — we have no current prices for those.
Sort before you fly The entry tax (the portal opens seven days before arrival), the nature fee, the rental car and an eSIM. Bonaire has no public bus and no ride-hailing, so the car is not optional in any practical sense.
What you need Your passport as well as your licence: a driving licence alone is not valid ID at a roadside check. Water shoes, and reef-safe sunscreen bought before you travel.
Do not Do not dive today: Bonaire requires a checkout dive first and the shops shut in the late afternoon. Do not drive north today either: the coast road is one-way past 1000 Steps and the light goes fast.
Time at the stops 4 h 30 min

Time at the stops is our estimate of how long each one is worth, added up. Travel time between them is calculated from the coordinates — a straight line, a quarter added for the bends in the road, at 28 km/h by car. Add the journey from your own hotel.

Sort this before you go

A rental car

Bonaire has no bus network worth planning around. For the days below that leave Kralendijk you need your own wheels; book before you fly, because the island runs out of cars in high season.

The rental companies on Bonaire

Data on your phone

Bonaire is outside EU roaming, so your bundle from home does not apply and the bill can be unpleasant. An eSIM you activate before you land is the cheapest fix. The app works offline either way — the map and every stop below are stored on the phone.

Questions people ask

Do you need a rental car on Bonaire?

For any stay longer than a cruise call, effectively yes. Bonaire has no functioning public bus service and no ride-hailing, taxis are priced for occasional use rather than daily transport, and the dive sites, beaches and viewpoints are spread over 39 kilometres (24 miles) of island.

How is the nature fee different from the entry tax?

They are two separate payments. The visitor entry tax is USD 75 for air arrivals aged 13 and over, paid once per visit, valid a month, and it goes to the island government. The nature fee is USD 40 per calendar year and it goes to STINAPA, to run the marine park and Washington Slagbaai. Cruise passengers pay a USD 10 entry tax instead, collected by the cruise line.

What time does it get dark on Bonaire?

Sunset runs from about 18:20 in November to about 19:05 in June and July, with only twenty minutes or so of usable light after it. Bonaire does not use daylight saving. Plan to be off unlit roads before dark: there are goats and donkeys on them and no street lighting outside town.

Is the first day enough to see anything?

Comfortably. A landing at half past one leaves five or six hours, which is a swim, a viewpoint, a supermarket run and dinner on the water. What it is not is enough for the north, a dive, or Washington Slagbaai. All three need a full morning start.

Before you fly

Take this route with you

All 4 places on this page are in the free Bonaire app: a map that shows where you are, walking and driving directions to the next stop, and the whole lot downloaded before you leave — so it keeps working where the signal does not.

App Store Google Play

Free · no account · works offline

The other Bonaire day routes