Ask the internet about "islands near Venezuela" and you mostly get Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao — the Dutch ABC islands that sit within sight of the Venezuelan coast but belong to another country entirely. Venezuela's own islands are less famous and far less visited, which is exactly what makes them interesting. By most official counts the country has more than 300 islands, islets, and cays scattered across the southern Caribbean, from the old pearl islands of the east to remote atolls that see more sailboats than tourists. Only a handful are realistically visitable. This is the map, ordered from the easiest trip to the hardest, as of October 2026.
Margarita: the big one
Margarita Island is Venezuela's largest island, the capital of its island state of Nueva Esparta, and the only one with real infrastructure: an international airport, a ferry link to the mainland, hotels at every price point, and a road network that puts dozens of beaches within a short drive. If you are coming from the US, it is almost certainly where your Venezuelan island trip starts — our guide to getting to Margarita from the US covers the current routes, and the coast-by-coast beach guide covers what you will find when you land.
Margarita is also the natural base for reaching most of the other islands on this list. Treat it as the hub and the rest as spokes.
Coche and Cubagua: the pearl islands
Margarita shares its state with two smaller sisters just to the south. Coche is the easy one: a flat, arid island with a calm, shallow western shore, reachable by boat on an organized day trip from Margarita's south coast. It has a small resort strip, a fishing town, and steady wind that has made it a side destination for the same kite and windsurf crowd that fills El Yaque. We cover the logistics in our Coche and La Restinga day-trip guide.
Cubagua, the smallest of the three, is the historical oddity. It was the center of the Spanish pearl rush in the early 1500s and home to Nueva Cadiz, one of the first European towns founded in the Americas — destroyed by an earthquake and storm in 1541 and never rebuilt. Today the island is essentially uninhabited apart from fishing camps, and visits are by boat excursion from Margarita or Coche: snorkeling, the ruins, and not much else, which is the appeal.
Los Roques: the postcard archipelago
Los Roques is the one you have seen in photos even if you did not know its name: an atoll-like national park of roughly 300 cays and islets around a huge turquoise lagoon, with some of the clearest water in the Caribbean. It is a protected national park, and access runs through the small airstrip on Gran Roque — most flights come from Caracas, with occasional charters from Margarita in high season. It is the most beautiful place in Venezuela and also one of the most expensive to visit; our Los Roques guide explains how to do it from Margarita and what it costs.
One honest note: the park's popularity is testing it. Venezuelan environmental groups have criticized a recent runway extension on Gran Roque and the strain that growing visitor numbers put on reefs and turtle nesting beaches, as reported by outlets such as Latin American Post. Go, but go with a light footprint.
La Tortuga: the empty island with big plans
La Tortuga is Venezuela's second-largest island and, for now, close to empty — no towns, no scheduled transport, just fishing camps, seabirds, and long white beaches visited mainly by private sailboats and the occasional organized expedition from the mainland. That may not last. Since 2022 the government has been promoting a major tourism development there — an airport, a port, and a cluster of luxury hotels have all been announced, and the project has drawn sustained criticism from Venezuelan scientists and environmental groups worried about the island's reefs and nesting sites. As of October 2026 La Tortuga remains, in practice, a boat-access wilderness. If you want to see a Caribbean island the way they all used to look, this is the window.
The far-flung rest: Los Testigos, La Blanquilla, and the bird islands
Beyond these, Venezuela's Federal Dependencies trail off into islands that only sailors reliably reach. Los Testigos, northeast of Margarita, is a small fishing community with giant sand dunes and a reputation among Caribbean cruisers as a favorite anchorage. La Blanquilla, due north of Margarita, is prized for white sand and water clarity that sailors compare to Los Roques without the crowds. The Aves archipelagos further west are essentially seabird sanctuaries. None of these have scheduled transport or accommodation; they are sailboat territory, usually visited on charters arranged from Margarita or the mainland.
Which island should you actually visit?
For a first trip, the honest answer is Margarita plus day trips: you get the beaches, the infrastructure, and easy boat access to Coche and Cubagua, with Los Roques as the splurge add-on if the budget allows. The remote islands reward a second trip — or a sailboat. Whatever you choose, read our safety guide for American travelers first and check current entry logistics before booking, because access details in Venezuela change faster than most travel sites update.