Getting Around the Bahamas

The road combination that is unusual anywhere

The Bahamas drives on the left. Hire cars, however, are commonly left-hand drive, which is the configuration used for driving on the right.

That combination is genuinely unfamiliar to almost everybody. A driver used to the right hand side of the road has to reverse the road position while keeping a familiar seat position; a driver used to the left has the road right and the seat wrong. Either way the difficult maneuvers are the same ones: pulling out of a junction, overtaking, and judging the width of the vehicle on the side you cannot feel. Give yourself a quiet road and a slow first hour.

Your license, and how long it lasts

A UK photocard driving license is valid in the Bahamas for 3 months, as recorded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. If you hold another country's license, that figure was not written about your document, and the Bahamian authorities are the body to ask. Beyond three months you need to make local arrangements.

Water transport is where the official warning sits

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that the water sports industry in the Bahamas is poorly regulated. In a country of sixteen inhabited islands, water transport is not a leisure category you can decline to engage with, so this is worth taking seriously rather than filing under adventure sports.

The practical reading: ask what safety equipment is carried and use it, ask who the operator is and whether they are licensed, decline anything that looks improvised, and do not let a group split across boats. A ride that is refused costs an afternoon.

A specific warning about jet ski operators

This one is stated plainly in the official advice and belongs in a transport guide rather than buried. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records reports of sexual assaults on foreign nationals by jet ski operators in Nassau.

The advice that follows from it is not complicated. Do not go out alone with an operator you have not vetted, stay where you can be seen, and treat an operator who wants to take you somewhere quieter as the end of the transaction. Our safety guide covers what to do if something goes wrong.

Moving between islands

The archipelago is spread across a long stretch of ocean and the islands are connected by air and by sea rather than by road. Two consequences are worth planning for. Connections are less frequent than a map suggests, so a same day transfer between two outlying islands may not exist. And medical capacity follows the same pattern: the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that emergency facilities are limited on all the Family Islands, with serious cases moved to Nassau or Freeport. Distance from a hospital is a transport fact as much as a health one.

What this guide does not tell you

No fares, no timetables, no operator names, no route maps. None is sourced here and all of them change. Confirm schedules with the operator and road rules with the Bahamian authorities.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bahamas safety and security: violent crime in residential and tourist areas of New Providence and Grand Bahama, the record that the outlying Family or Out Islands have lower crime rates, the increase in risk during regattas and festivals, reports of sexual assaults on foreign nationals by jet ski operators in Nassau, fatal shark attacks and the instruction never to enter water that has been baited, the statement that the water sports industry is poorly regulated, the three month limit on a UK photocard driving license, left-hand drive hire cars on left-hand traffic, and a hurricane season running 1 June to 30 November. Accessed 18 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bahamas health: the instruction to call 911 or 919 and ask for an ambulance, to begin health preparation at least 8 weeks before the trip, the record that medical treatment is of a good standard but can be expensive, that emergency medical facilities are limited on all the Family Islands with serious cases transferred to Nassau or Freeport, and the estimate that at least 7,600 adults aged 15 or over are living with HIV. Accessed 18 September 2026.