The Caribbean is filled with with beautiful butterflies of all sizes and colors. In the fall, you can see clouds of them swirling around the hills and valley of the tropical isles. In the summer, they’re less common int he wild, but you can still visit the Butterfly Farm to see nature’s winged beauties in action. 

The Butterfly Farm has locations in both Aruba and Saint Martin. In Saint Martin, it is on the French side of the Island near Galion Bay Beach. In my ten months of living on the island, I had passed in many times on my way to surf, but never had a chance to stop. My friend Stacey and I had both wanted to visit for a long, time, so we decided to take a couple of the kids we know and make an afternoon of it.

Visiting the farm is actually pretty inexpensive compared to farms in the states. We also got the local’s discount: $10 for adults and $5 for kids. Viator has a deal for tourists: $56 for a trip to the farm, a tour, and then three hours at Orient Bay, Saint Martin’s most poplar beach, with all transportation included.

St. Maarten Combo Tour: Butterfly Farm and Orient Bay
from: Viator

When we got there, we were welcomed with a friendly greeting from the staff and led into the butterfly enclosure.

The best part of the whole experience was seeing the kids’ face when we walked in! Giant blue butterflies floated past our noses, and we couldn’t help but stop and stare at all the life that filled the air around us. Later, our guide told us that the afternoon is a quiet time in the enclosure, so I can only image how incredible it must be in the morning.

We walked around for a while before our tour started. There was a lot to see. Most of the butterflies were as big as our faces!

We joined a tour of the facility. The tours are offered in both English and French. The kids would have been fine with either, but we Americans were happy to take the tour in English. Our guide was wonderful. She made it interesting for both the kids and the adults and was happy to answer all our questions.

The tour took us through the entire enclosure and gave s a complete overview of the entire life cycle. I thought I knew everything about butterflies, but I still learned a few things!

First, we learned about butterfly eggs. When a female butterfly is ready to lay eggs, she finds a host plant to leave them on. Only certain plants, like milkweed, can be a host plant. The host plant has to be edible for the caterpillar and should be poisonous to give the caterpillar a slight toxicity.

This huge caterpillar reminded me of the one from Bug’s Life. It becomes an owl butterfly. It wraps itself in a leaf cocoon and creates a chrysalis inside. It stays like that for a long time, and then becomes a butterfly with a lifespan of only five days.

We loved the chrysalis cabinets. Our guide told us that “chrysalis” is derived from the Greek word “gold.” Most chrysalises have at least a little gold to warn away predators. My favorite one was entirely gold! Our guide said that the butterflies hatch during the night and sometimes up to 75 butterflies will fly out in the morning.

Once the butterfly breaks free of its chrysalis, it spends its time drinking nectar from its straw-like proboscis, mating, and laying eggs.

At the end of the tour, our guide let us put fermented orange juice on our hands to attract the butterflies. We were able to let them land on us, which was just magical!

The little one carried around this butterfly for about half an hour. It didn’t want to leave her! I told her it was because she’s so sweet.

The rarest butterfly in the farm is this white one. Mister G said that it was his favorite of all.

The kids were great at spotting camouflaged butterflies and caterpillars. The little one found some green caterpillars way up in the trees, and she kept peeking under leaves to discover patches of eggs.  

The end of our time came too soon! We couldn’t believe it was already closing time.

Just before we walked out, one last butterfly landed on Mister G’s hand for a brief moment… a quick goodbye butterfly kiss.

St. Maarten Combo Tour: Butterfly Farm and Orient Bay
from: Viator