Buggies, ATVs and Scooters in Curaçao: What You Are Actually Signing Up For

The pitch for every off-road tour on this island is freedom: you at the wheel, dust behind you, tracks no ordinary car can reach. Two-thirds of that is accurate. The part that is usually left out is that you will be driving in a line, behind a guide, at the guide’s speed, and you will stop where the guide stops.

That is not a criticism. It is how these tours are run, and it is why they are open to people who have never driven anything like a UTV. But it changes the question from do I want an adventure to what exactly am I buying for €150 to €190.

The numbers, before anything else

Our buggy and ATV tours category holds 17 offers, starting at €45.68, with a median price of €101.02. That median is the honest figure to plan with — the cheap end is short and local, and the tours people actually talk about sit near or above the hundred.

For comparison, the whole things to do category starts at €12.99. Off-road is one of the most expensive ways to spend a morning here. Whether it earns that is the rest of this article.

The two buggy tours worth comparing

The off-road UTV and buggy adventure is the heavyweight: €188.86 for 3.5 hours — and that is the price for the buggy, for up to two people, not per head, plus 5 stars from 296 reviews, the largest body of feedback on any off-road offer here. The meeting point is SV De Koning in Sint Michiel. The tour runs across the Hato plains, past the Windmill Farm to the Santa Martha lookout and along the Bullenbaai coastline, and includes a swim stop at Kokomo Beach with 25 minutes in the water and snorkel gear. Groups are limited to 14 participants. Goggles, a briefing, water and a multilingual guide are included; hotel pickup, lunch and tips are not — you make your own way to the meeting point.

The off-road buggy tour is €149.33 for 3 hours — again for the buggy, for up to two people, of which about 2.5 hours is actual driving, and holds 4.5 stars from 189 reviews. You get a two-seat automatic buggy and follow the guide caravan-style. A round-trip transfer is available but not in that price — the booking page lists it explicitly among the things that are not included. The operator prices it by zone at 15, 35 or 45 US dollars per person, paid in cash to the taxi driver. Budget for it if you have no car. The start is the operator’s buggy shop opposite the Sunscape Resort. Arrive fifteen minutes early; that is in the operator’s own instructions.

Automatic transmission on both. If you can drive a car, you can drive these.

The age and licence rules are not the same on both

This is the part that ruins mornings, because people assume one rule covers the island.

• On the UTV and buggy adventure: drivers must be at least 21 and bring a valid driving licence. Passengers from 12.
• On the off-road buggy tour: drivers must be 18 or over with a valid licence. Passengers from 4.

Same activity, three years and eight years of difference. Check the rule on the booking page for the specific tour, not on a general guide — including this one.

One inconsistency worth knowing about: the first listing states a passenger minimum of 12 and also carries a blanket “not suitable for children under 8”. Those two statements do not sit comfortably together. If you are travelling with a child between those ages, ask the operator in writing before you pay.

Both buggy operators exclude the same groups: pregnant women and people with back problems, with neck and back surgery named specifically on the off-road buggy tour. For the other offers in this category the exclusion is on their own booking page. The tracks are hard-packed dirt and stone and the suspension does its job loudly. Take that exclusion at face value.

If you would rather not drive a buggy at all

The electric scooter tour of the south-east is the gentlest thing in this category and, at €51.83 per person for 105 minutes with 4.8 stars from 158 reviews, the cheapest of the tours described here.

Fat-tyre electric scooters, helmets included, starting and finishing on the Caracasbaai peninsula. The route stops at the “Love Seat” viewpoint above the bay, at Fort Beekenburg, at Tugboat Beach and at the 18th-century quarantine house, and turns around at Directeursbaai. The minimum age is 5; 14- to 17-year-olds may ride their own scooter accompanied by a parent or guardian, and adults over 18 must bring a driving licence or ID, digital or paper. No sandals, flip-flops or bare feet — that is stated explicitly in the operator’s notes, so pack closed shoes even though the whole route runs along the water. Not suitable for pregnant women or people with back or heart problems.

For the far west there is an ATV tour of West Curaçao at €101.02, 4.7 stars from 96 reviews, and a west-coast off-road ATV tour with a cave and a swim at €189.91 per group of up to two that is capped at six ATVs per guide — one of the few offers here that states a vehicle-to-guide ratio at all, and the reason to pick it over a bigger convoy.

The comparison nobody selling a tour will make for you

Most of the scenery on these routes — the west coast, the viewpoints, the cactus plains, the beaches — is reachable in an ordinary hire car on ordinary roads. If what you want is the landscape, a car for a whole day costs a fraction of what these tours charge for three hours, and you can stop when you like, which is exactly what the convoy does not allow.

What the car will not do is the tracks between the roads. That is the actual product: access, a guide who knows where the cave and the turtles are, and a vehicle you are not responsible for beyond the deposit.

So the decision is straightforward. Want the landscape? Compare hire cars for Curaçao and drive it yourself — but check what your rental agreement says about unpaved roads before you assume the car does the same job. Want the dirt, the noise and somebody else’s suspension? Book the buggy.

If you take the car, our guide to Curaçao’s nature spots has the opening times that catch drivers out — the national park stops selling tickets long before it closes.

Practical things people forget

Wear clothes you do not mind ruining, and bring a change if the tour has a swim stop; you will be wet, salty and dusty in that order. Goggles are supplied on the buggy tours, sunglasses are not enough on their own. Smoking and drinking alcohol are not allowed during the tour — that is the UTV adventure’s own wording, and the electric scooter tour lists alcohol and drugs among the things it does not allow.

And if the whole group would rather be in the water: water sports with equipment start at €43.92, and our guide to jet skis, Seabobs and kayaks explains why the wind decides which coast you end up on.