TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Quickest way from SXM to Orient

We get in tomorrow afternoon! Can't wait! Quick dumb question - When we leave the airport, we generally drive to Orient via Mullet Bay, Marigot - clockwise I guess. Is it longer to go the other way, past Dawn beach?

I would go through Marigot but approach Marigot from the Causeway Bridge. More of a straight shot.

Agree with Scuba--much quicker to go across the Causeway.

Avoid Marigot from the causeway. They are digging up the road near MacDonald's and held us up nearly 45 minutes yesterday. Go thru Cupecoy and the waterfront to avoid it.

Thanks, all!

Go via Lowlands via French side

Elaine--thanks for the up to date info!

Regardless of which route you take, be prepared to crawl after the roundabout heading up the hill towards Grand Case. I hope you have better luck than we did a couple of weeks ago.

I will be on the island in about a month. I usually take that route from Simpson Bay Beach. What is causing the traffic issue going up the hill past the roundabout? Is there new road construction there? Or something else? Usually the issue is BEFORE the roundabout.

Traffic backing up that hill has been going on for a long time.

Overdevelopment; too much traffic for the poor roads to handle. Traffic is an issue pretty much all the time now, not just rush hour. And when there's an accident, be prepared to sit in traffic for some time.

Thanks Carol and jazzgal. I've been coming to the island for over a decade and agree that the development and traffic continue to get worse, while the roads deteriorate further. Yes, I've run into slowdowns on that section before, but only once where we were stopped dead in heavy traffic. Maybe I've just been lucky or my timing has been good?

I was concerned that there was some other new reason for it being so bad lately. But I guess not. For me, the real nightmare now is how often the traffic on Airport Road from the airport to the causeway, and especially from there on towards the lift bridge, is so often stopped dead and just crawls. Unfortunately, I have very few choices since I stay on Simpson Bay Beach and have to access Simpson Bay Road from beside the police station.

We had not experienced it nearly as badly as this trip. Both times that we went that way we were stopped for long periods on that hill.

We have never been stopped on that hill. Slow crawl sometimes but that might be the time of year and time of day we are traveling that road.

The "best" route depends on time of day and day of the week. Then again, there is no predicting anything about island traffic with any degree of accuracy!

Fuggedaboudit!

First time back since Irma today. Took the causeway. Took 1 1/2 hours to get to Orient. That was awful but thankfully, Orient brought back the good memories. Lowlands on the way back next week.

Good to know we arrive tomorrow and will also be staying the French side this trip. Before we head out from SXM I will use my traffic app to see which route appears to be quickest at the moment. The last few days I have been checking it around our arrival time with the causeway route around 1 hour fifteen minutes and lowland just barely under 1 hr. This is something I started doing years ago when traveling for work and arriving in places like Miami ,Chicago and Houston for work as you never know what rush hour traffic or road work is being performed.

Good idea. What app do use?

I use WAZE navigation app but Google maps also works