The Disney produced family adventure classic Swiss Family Robinson was shot entirely on location on the Caribbean island of Tobago in 1959. 

Since my earliest memories this film, perhaps like no other, inspired a sense of adventure and desire to explore. As long as I can remember I wanted to visit the places featured in this film. It was a perennial Christmas movie for my family, recorded off the TV onto VHS tape, to this day I can still quote the Boxing Day ads from this copy. It was a film that my dad, brother and I could instantly agree on watching, ending any VHS choice paralysis. And now that my brother and father have passed, the film provides a deep sense of nostagia, and resonates with me more than ever. 

Whilst I spent many an hour pouring over the internet, and Google Earth in particular, I only found so many locations by myself. This trip would not have been possible if it weren't for this amazing website: 

https://www.reelstreets.com/films/swiss-family-robinson/  

It provides more recent shot matches and even has a map and guide providing details on where the locations are. It really is fantastic, and a huge thanks to them. 

Another website with a charming tale to tell regarding the treehouse tree can be found here:

https://miehana.blogspot.com/2010/10/swiss-family-tree-found.html

And so it was during late February 2024 we travelled from a dull and dreary UK to the paradise island of Tobago. For me the tropics are always an exciting and envigorating place to be, but when transported directly from the horror of a British winter, the thrill of the bright sun, blue skies, luxuriant green vegetation, and the exotic sounds of tropical life are intoxicating. 

The first location is the shipwreck: 

 

The ship Titus wrecked evading pirates into the storm. 

The location is called Shipwreck Bay (named because of the film) near Belle Garden. 

 

 The production crew built a jetty out to the ship, which was anchored in situ with iron stanchions, remains of which are visable below.

Never leave home without one. 

  

The family battle the waves. 

 

The family come ashore at Richmond Bay, which is just shy of a mile, as the crow flies, due west of the shipwreck location. There are fewer Coconut Palms than 65 years previous, and there's a lot of plastic debris on the beach now, but the view is largely unchanged.

 

 

The shot of the tiger menacingly watching the family set up camp was not filmed at Richmond Bay, but where the Goldsborough River meets the sea, very near to the tree house location. 

 

Father discovers a "quarantine flag" to scare the pirates off with. The flag is actually the symbol for I, India, in the phonetic alphebet. Never the less his ploy works and the pirates retreat in fear of the black death or some such like.

 

The salvage operation with the raft was filmed in the sheltered waters of Boat Bay, Belle Garden, a third of a mile west of where the ship is wrecked.

 

 

The infamous tree house of many a child's dreams, if not Mother's. The treehouse set was destroyed in the hurricane of 1963, and it was thought the tree had been taken too. However, the huge Samaan tree still survives, though a shadow of its former glory it is still an impressive site. The tree can be found off Cow Farm Road in the grounds of a garage. Unfortunately the tree is being slowly poisoned by black, treacle-like waste oil spilling out of an old, rusty, open-topped oil drum left directly at the tree's base. Sadly it is clearly unloved, surrounded by rubbish (I removed some litter that had been stuffed into the trunk), with a derelict chicken coop sitting the other side of its base. After surviving all these years, it's heartbreaking to see it so abused and neglected. 

 

 

Taken from Cow Farm Lane just up from Windward Road. I am entirely relying on "Jazz" from reelstreets.com with the angles for the shot matches. Since he was there in 2019 the tree has continued to deteriorate, making it almost impossible to determine which parts of the tree relate to anything in the film. 

 

 

The family have fun at a waterfall, apparently within earshot of the treehouse. In reality it is Craig Hall Waterfall about 5 miles, as the crow flies, and many miles by road, from the tree house. 

 

 

The site is easily found as it is right next to the road, which no doubt made it even more attractive to the film makers.

 

 

The "water slides" were built for the film and still remain. Though due to the passage of time much less water flows in them, and they are a little rough to slide down now. Also, very sadly, no swimming is allowed at the falls due to the stream providing local drinking water. Again the scene is largely unchanged apart from lots of litter, which I spent half an hour or so picking up.

 

 

The boys set off to explore the coast. Here they sail past Grange Beach.

 

 

They come ashore with an impressive catch of fish at Pigeon Point.

 

 

The boys run into trouble back at Shipwreck Bay on the south coast (yards from where the shipwreck scene was shot). I had a lot of trouble getting accurate shot matches here.  

 

 

Roberta and the Captain are tied up at Mount Irvine Bay on the north coast, not just miles from where the boys crash their boat, but on a completely different coast. The rocks still remain essentially unchanged after all these years.

 

 

The travel montage takes us to various spots across Tobago. This view is of Celery Bay and King Peter’s Bay and can be found off just off the road. I had a pleasant experience chatting to the owner of the land that overlooks the scene. 

 

 

This view is from Richmond Point, just east of where the family have their defensive position at the end of the film.

 

 

On the Windward Road looking to Smith's Island. It was very difficult to get a good shot match. The Windward Road is very busy here, there are few places to pull over, and the land is very obviously privately owned in this vicinity. 

 

 

Pirate alarms! The hill top "fort" overlooks Richmond Bay (as you would expect, though as we've seen, relative geography in films is often very different in reality). The area is now overgrown, but we were able to access it due to recent slash and burn agricultural practices. 

 

 

The "fort" of "natural rocks" was constructed from chicken wire and concrete, and has completely collapsed now, but a chaos of very realistic stone effect concrete and chicken wire remain as proof of the film history that was made here.

 

"Fort" remains.

 

Looking at screenshots trying to match up scenes.

 

 

Back to the beach at Richmond Bay.

 

 

The pirates flee from the canon fire of the colonials. Reelstreets.com says this is "headland supposedly below the Robinsons' last stand", I can confirm it is where it appears to be in the film and the "film geography" is true to real life.

Unfortunately, the film is no longer available to buy new on Blu-ray, a wasted opportunity. When occasionally available on Disney+, it comes with a disclaimer regarding its dated attitudes. The film is no doubt problematic in its handling of race, gender roles, animal welfare and colonialism. The movie is of its time and should be viewed in this context. 

Tobago is truly a beautiful island with friendly people and stunning natural history. Whilst the modern world is having a pretty good go at damaging the place, and it has a serious problem with plastic pollution, I cannot recommend it more highly. The island had almost impossible levels of expectation to live up to, after decades of me wishing to visit, but it lived up to all I hoped it would be.