• Date of visit: March 28, 2023
• Post office visited: Saba Post Office, FXDC, Windwardside
• Cost of sending mail: $1.50 USD (international, 2023); $2.39 USD (2025)
• Postcards available at: gift shops
• Delivery time to Europe: over a month

Nestled in the northeastern Caribbean, Saba is a tiny volcanic island, just 13 square kilometers in size. Known for its steep cliffs and lush greenery, it rises dramatically from the sea, with its main settlement, The Bottom, tucked into a small valley at the island’s center.

A Bit of Saba’s Postal History

1816 the island formally became part of the Dutch Kingdom. By the 1820s, the Dutch government had begun establishing formal postal routes in the Dutch Caribbean, linking the island more directly with the wider postal system. Island residents continued to push for better services, as shown by a letter dated May 27, 1932, to the Governor of Curaçao requesting a formal postal arrangement, though it is unclear how much immediate effect this had.

In 2010, Saba, together with Sint Eustatius and Bonaire, became a special municipality of the Netherlands, a status that allowed the island greater autonomy and fully integrated its postal service into the Dutch system, linking this small Caribbean rock directly with Europe.

A Day in Saba

Our journey to Saba began on Sint Maarten – that curious island split in two, with the northern part belonging to France and the southern part to the Netherlands, all set in the middle of the Caribbean. And as if that wasn’t unique enough, we decided to fly to tiny Saba, where parts of the 1933 King Kong movie were filmed

There are ferries several times a week from Sint Maarten, but we chose the more thrilling option: the plane. Saba’s landing strip is the shortest commercial runway in the world – only about 400 meters long – with steep cliffs, rocks, and sea right at the edges. The landing was pure adrenaline for us, though the pilot seemed entirely calm.

The airport is only a couple of kilometers from Windwardside – the village where the post office is located – but the winding uphill road makes it a good 4.5 km. We visited on a Tuesday, and the first thing we did was head straight to the post office. It was still closed; no surprise, since it was only 9:30 a.m. So we wandered back to the center of town. Souvenir shops with a great selection of postcards and local stamps were already open, as were cafés that seemed to be waiting just for us. We picked Bizzy B as our first stop, where fresh pastries were already out of the oven.

I filled in my postcards there, but my second mission was calling: to climb the highest peak in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Mount Scenery rises 870 m (2,854 ft), officially the highest point in the country.

The volcano is classified as dormant – not erupting now, but still alive. On that day it showed no signs of unrest, so Andry and I agreed on a split mission: he would take care of the postcards, while I would conquer the peak. The hike was beautiful but demanding, and the view from the top made every step worth it.

Six hours later, back in Windwardside, I learned that Andry’s “post office conquest” hadn’t gone exactly as planned. Some locals said the postal clerk had gone to Sint Maarten, while others said the office was temporarily closed due to illness and the office wouldn’t reopen for a couple of weeks. Either way, the post office remained closed. So we dropped our postcards in the mailbox, and they only began reaching their recipients about a month later.

Our return flight from the seaside airport gave us another heart-racing moment: watching the wheels lift off just before the cliffs dropped away. But the pilot delivered us safely back to Sint Maarten.

The highest point in the Netherlands – checked. The Saba post office – found but left unopened. But the story of a post office we actually managed to step inside — that happened in a different country, and that’s a tale for the next chapter.

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Just a little funny fact: Saba means tail in Estonian.