Accessible Travel in Bermuda

The starting point is unusual and it is in your favor

Tourists are not allowed to drive cars in Bermuda.

On most destinations an accessible trip begins by ruling out the default. Here the default has already been ruled out for everybody. Every visitor to Bermuda plans around buses, ferries and taxis, so a traveler who was never going to drive is not planning a different trip from anyone else, and a question about how to reach somewhere without a car is an ordinary question rather than a special request.

Plan around where you stay more than you would elsewhere. Proximity to a route is the variable that matters, and it matters equally to every visitor. Our transportation guide sets out the options.

Distances behave differently here

The national speed limit of 35 kilometers per hour applies across the island. Journeys take longer than a map implies, which cuts both ways: an itinerary has to be less ambitious, and the pace of a day is gentler than in a place built around fast roads.

Scooters are not the answer here

Scooters are the common visitor workaround for the driving rule, and the official record carries a specific warning: accidents between 50cc scooters and cars are common, and they have caused serious injuries and deaths. For a traveler with limited mobility, balance difficulties or a condition affected by a fall, that is a straightforward reason to plan without one.

Healthcare, which is genuinely good and genuinely expensive

This is the part that most changes an accessible trip's budget.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office records that King Edward VII Memorial Hospital has a good accident and emergency department, and that most types of medication are readily available in Bermuda, including UK brands. For a traveler dependent on regular medication, that is reassuring: this is not a destination where an ordinary prescription is hard to replace.

The cost is the other side. Medication and medical treatment in Bermuda are very expensive, and cases needing treatment Bermuda cannot provide are usually referred to either Baltimore or Boston in the USA. Insurance must therefore cover medical expenses in the United States and repatriation by air ambulance. Anybody traveling with a pre-existing condition should declare it and confirm in writing that it is covered on those terms.

Begin the health preparation early. The official advice is to start at least 8 weeks before your trip, which is also enough time to resolve an insurance question before it becomes a booking problem.

The sea

There are strong rip currents in many places across Bermuda, and most people in Bermuda do not swim in the sea until after Bermuda Day in late May. Both matter more, not less, to a swimmer whose options in a current are limited.

The questions this guide cannot answer

Nothing in this guide's register describes step-free access to Bermudian buses or ferries, accessible taxis, accommodation standards, beach access, or accessible facilities at any attraction. Those are exactly the facts an accessible trip turns on, and this page will not invent them.

Ask them directly, and ask for specifics rather than assurances: the width of a door, the number of steps to an entrance, whether a ferry boards by ramp or by step. Bermuda's transport operators, accommodation providers and the attractions themselves are the only sources that can answer, and a written answer before you book is worth more than a verbal one on arrival.

Sources

• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bermuda safety and security: a moderate level of crime, theft of unattended baggage and belongings including from rental scooters, the record that Bermuda is a separate legal jurisdiction to the United Kingdom with its own laws, that it is illegal for anyone to be topless in public and illegal to drink alcohol in public outside of licensed premises, that weapons law covers ammunition including empty magazines, that drug offenses carry prison sentences of up to 25 years, that same-sex partners can no longer marry following a change in the law, that there are strong rip currents in many places, that most people do not swim in the sea until after Bermuda Day in late May, that tourists are not allowed to drive cars, that accidents between 50cc scooters and cars are common, a national speed limit of 35 kilometers per hour, and a hurricane season normally running from June to November. Accessed 18 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Bermuda health: the instruction to call 911 and ask for an ambulance, to begin health preparation at least 8 weeks before the trip, the record of insect-borne disease including dengue, that most types of medication are readily available including UK brands, that King Edward VII Memorial Hospital has a good accident and emergency department, that medication and medical treatment are very expensive, that cases needing treatment Bermuda cannot provide are usually referred to either Baltimore or Boston in the USA, and that insurance should cover repatriation by air ambulance. Accessed 18 September 2026.