10 Best Shopping in St. Kitts, St. Kitts and Nevis

As artist Kate Spencer summers in Sicily, you must call ahead for an appointment to visit her studio outside Rawlins Plantation (note that she typically closes from May through October). It's very much worth doing so, though, to shop for her truly unique and brilliantly colored original paintings, serigraphs, note cards, scarves, and other lovely pieces.

All Kind of Tings, a peppermint-pink edifice on Liverpool Row at College Street Ghaut, functions as a de facto vendors' market, where several booths sell local crafts and cheap T-shirts. Its courtyard frequently hosts folkloric dances, fashion shows, poetry readings, and steel-pan concerts.

Caribelle Batik sells gloriously colored batik wraps, kimonos, caftans, T-shirts, dresses, wall hangings, and the like; you can watch the process in back.

The Crafthouse is one of the best sources for local dolls, wood carvings, and straw work.

Talk about multitasking: this little oasis offers a restaurant, an infinity pool and hot tub with bay views, miniature botanical gardens, and the Shell Works atelier and gift shop, where artisans fashion graceful napkin holders, candlesticks, stemware, wall hangings, and jewelry from coral, sea fans, mother-of-pearl, and other marine materials. The $2 admission is refunded with a purchase.

This shopping arcade, designed to look like a traditional Caribbean street, has more than 20 stores (purveying mostly resort wear, souvenirs, and liquor), a restaurant, tourism offices, and a bandstand near the cruise-ship pier.

Directly behind Pelican Mall, on the waterfront, is Port Zante, the deepwater cruise-ship pier where a much-delayed upscale shopping–dining complex has become a 50-shop area (including the large, ubiquitous jewelry concerns like Abbott's, Diamonds International, and Kay). If you're looking for inexpensive, local T-shirts, souvenirs, and crafts, check out Amina Market, a series of vendors' huts behind Pelican Mall to the right of Port Zante as you face the sea.

Shoreline Plaza is next to the Treasury Building, right on Basseterre's waterfront. The shops mainly sell T-shirts and locally made handicrafts and souvenirs.

In addition to a wide selection of exceptional work by regional and local artists and artisans, this gallery sells Caribbean island charts and other historical reproductions, as well as owner Rosey Cameron Smith's popular Carnevale clown prints. It also showcases Glass Island's seductively colored, sinuously shaped, art-glass frames, plates, and other items. In addition, one section is devoted to the Potter's House, the atelier of Carla Astaphan, who celebrates her Afro-Caribbean heritage with beautifully glazed ceramics and masks. Another section houses the NOMAD Chic clothing boutique. Rosey's daughter Leah runs a courtyard café that sells scrumptious baked goods. With so much on offer, it's good to know that the gallery ships worldwide.

TDC Mall is just off the Circus in downtown, with a few boutiques, selling mostly island wear.