Plan your visit
La Désirade is one of France’s great natural sites — bring good shoes and a camera. Locate it on the map, book a room nearby in a click, or add it to your travel list to build your itinerary.
About La Désirade
The most remote and unspoiled of the islands around Guadeloupe, La Désirade is a long, narrow ridge of arid rock lying to the east, the first land sighted by Columbus on his second voyage — hence the "longed-for" island. Its dry, wind-scoured plateau of cactus and scrub shelters iguanas and rare plants, and geologists prize it for containing the oldest rocks in the whole Lesser Antilles. A single coastal road links a string of quiet fishing hamlets and small beaches of pale sand and clear water, watched over by an old weather station and chapel. Reached by a sometimes lively ferry crossing, wild, dry and gloriously peaceful, La Désirade offers a rare escape to an authentic, almost forgotten corner of the French Antilles.