Virgin Islands Discovery Guide

The Virgin Islands give you the Caribbean without a passport, a currency change or a language barrier if you are coming from the United States — and with a national park that keeps a third of the group looking the way it did before any of it was developed.

The snorkelling is the real draw. Trunk Bay's underwater trail and Buck Island Reef, off St. Croix, are both genuinely good and both reachable without a boat charter.

The friction is cruise-ship rhythm. On a day when four ships are in, Charlotte Amalie is unpleasant and Trunk Bay is full; on a day when none are, both are lovely. The schedules are published and checking them is the single highest-value piece of planning you can do here.

The other friction is cost. Almost everything is shipped in, and prices reflect it.

If you travel slowly

Base on St. John and rent a vehicle for a week. The park has some thirty kilometres of trails and a string of north-shore beaches that empty out by four in the afternoon when the day-trippers ferry back.

If you want to see the essentials

A week split between St. Thomas and St. John covers the beaches, the harbour and the park. Add St. Croix only if you have ten days, because getting there is a flight or a long ferry rather than a hop.

If you seek local character

St. Croix. Christiansted and Frederiksted are working towns rather than shopping districts, the Puerto Rican and Crucian food is the best in the territory, and almost no cruise passengers get there.

If you want to go beyond the obvious

Water Island, a short ferry from St. Thomas and barely developed. The Reef Bay Trail on St. John, which passes pre-Columbian petroglyphs and the ruins of a sugar mill. And Point Udall on St. Croix — the easternmost point of the United States, and a good place to watch a sunrise before anyone else in the country does.

Reef-safe sunscreen is the law here, not a suggestion. The territory banned the import, sale and use of sunscreens containing oxybenzone, octinoxate and octocrylene in 2020. Bring mineral sunscreen — zinc oxide or titanium dioxide — or buy it on arrival, because the products on most mainland shelves are not legal to use on these beaches.

Do not touch or stand on coral. The reefs here have been hit hard, first by the 2017 hurricanes and since by stony coral tissue loss disease, and restoration work is active and slow. Standing on a reef to adjust a mask kills what took decades to grow.

Anchoring on seagrass and coral is the other damage source; moorings are provided in the national park and are free to use.

Sea turtles nest on these beaches from roughly April to November. Fill in any hole you dig, take your beach gear away at night, and keep lights off nesting beaches — hatchlings navigate by the horizon and artificial light sends them inland.

Spend outside the cruise district. The duty-free shops in Charlotte Amalie are largely owned off-island; the restaurants, guides and guesthouses on St. Croix and in the St. Thomas neighbourhoods are not.

December to April is the dry season, the reliable weather and the high season all at once. Trade winds keep it comfortable, rain is brief, and prices and crowds are at their peak. Book early for the winter holidays.

May and early June are the sweet spot — still dry, noticeably cheaper, and the ships have thinned out. Late November and early December do the same at the other end.

Hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November, and the real risk is concentrated in August, September and October. September is the peak: many restaurants and some hotels simply close for it. Irma and Maria both struck in September 2017, two weeks apart.

Carnival is the fixed point of the local year and worth planning around. St. Thomas holds its Carnival in late April, St. John its Festival around the 4th of July, and St. Croix its Crucian Christmas Festival from December into early January.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost index vs country average