A history of the Royal Family on tour in the Caribbean – Tatler

Next month, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are thought to be embarking on their first royal tour in two years, visiting the Caribbean. It will be the first time that the couple have visited many of the Commonwealth nations there, having previously been to Australia and New Zealand, as well as the US and Canada. The trip is part of a planned charm offensive during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee year, with the young and charismatic duo set to showcase their unique brand of modern royalty.

The Caribbean has always been an important destination for royal tours. Indeed, the Queen is currently still head of state in 15 countries around the world, half of which are in the Caribbean, so it is unsurprising it is such an important destination for the Royal Family.

Her Majesty's first visit was in her Coronation year, 1953, highlighting just how important she regards these nations as being. In that year, she travelled first to Bermuda and then to Jamaica. She did not return until February 1966, when she took on a more all-encompassing tour of Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Guiana, Dominica, Antigua and Turks and Caicos. She made the trip again in 1975, taking in Bermuda, the Bahamas and Barbados, returning once more in 1977. She visited twice more in the 1980s, and once in the 1990s, with her last trip being in 2009 to Trinidad and Tobago and Bermuda.

Since then, she has handed the baton of royal travel on to the next generation, including her son, Prince Charles, and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, who have visited several times together in 2017 and 2019. The heir to the throne's last trip was just last December, when he bore witness to Barbados becoming a republic.

Prince Harry, pre-Megxit, was also dispatched to the Caribbean. He undertook a tour to Jamaica in 2012, famously racing Usain Bolt, and in 2016, undertook a two-week, seven-country trip in honour of the Queen's 90th birthday (where he met with Rihanna in Barbados).

Scroll down for a visual history of the Royal Family's tours to the Caribbean to date.

More here:

A history of the Royal Family on tour in the Caribbean - Tatler