Virgin Islands
Discover Virgin Islands
Introduction
The US Virgin Islands are an unincorporated territory of the United States rather than an independent country: US dollars, US postal service, US phone numbers, and residents who are US citizens but cannot vote for president.
There are three main islands and they are genuinely different places. St. Thomas is the busiest — the cruise port, the duty-free shopping, the harbour at Charlotte Amalie. St. John, twenty minutes away by ferry, is about two-thirds national park and is where people go to see almost nothing built. St. Croix, forty miles south, is the largest, the flattest and the least visited, with two Danish colonial towns and a rum distillery still working.
They were Danish for two and a half centuries. The United States bought them in 1917 to keep a German submarine base out of the Caribbean, and the Danish inheritance is still visible in the street names, the yellow-and-red town architecture, and one thing that surprises every visitor.
They drive on the left. On a US territory, in American left-hand-drive cars. This is not a quirk to note and forget — it is the most common way visitors get hurt here.