US Virgin Islands National Park

Hiking in Paradise

On the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John

If you know anything about us and our recent travels, the National Parks are our bucket list!  Since most of St. John is made up of the US Virgin Islands National Park, we realized we could enjoy hiking, snorkeling and check one more park off the list.

Getting to St. John requires flying into St. Thomas and then taking a ferry.  Flights are fairly expensive, as are the resorts and even the boutique hotels run $275-400 a night for the room.   I ended up finding a nice, smaller place in Cruz Bay, Coconut Coast Villas at a decent rate, and we kept our trip relatively short, reserving just four days.

Figuring out logistics was challenging.  We live about 90 minutes from MSP so early flights require an all-nighter or staying near the airport the night before.  Since our flight to Miami was at 6AM, we opted for the former. The second challenge was that the only flights into St. Thomas that made sense for us leave at 10AM from Miami and would have left us less than 30 minutes to make a connection, so we planned a night in Miami near the airport as well.  So two nights to get there and we'd be on our ferry by 1PM.  What we didn't have planned was a weather front off St. Thomas that had our flight first do a go-around, then landing in San Juan to refuel.  A second attempt at landing was also aborted, and we ended up spending a night in San Juan, on American Airlines.  We were literally 80 miles from St. Thomas.   We decided to make the best of it, went to the pool, had a few cocktails, and caught the 10AM flight to St. Thomas the next day.  Including the ferry ride, it took us 72 hours to get to St. John. 

Finally landing on St. Thomas

Our first stop, still with luggage, was St. John Brewers, near Cruz Bay in Mongoose Junction.  After a quick snack and a refreshing ale (or two), we took a shuttle to our hotel.  On a map it looks like you can walk to it, but the shortcut takes you through a small path by a pond, and we weren't about to do that with our roller bags.

But once we were able to decompress, unpack and take in the view from our hotel, it was worth it.  We spent the next 2 days trying to pack in as much as possible.

Sunset at Coconut Coast Villas

We hiked the Maria Hope Trail, and ended up at Majo Bay, where you can snorkel with Turtles. We also hiked the Cinnamon Bay Trail, and took a shuttle to Trunk Bay, which has an underwater snorkel trail.

23 Hiking on St. John

Our favorite activity was a 1/2 day boat excursion around the island on Stormy Pirates, stopping at two locations you can't get to by land to snorkel, and then lunch at Lime Out, a floating taco restaurant on the west side of St. John in Coral Bay, accessible by boat only.  The tacos were ok but the drinks were amazing.  We saw sea turtles and manta rays!

23 USVI St. John Snorkel 

Interesting facts:

• The island is nicknamed the Love City
• There is no freshwater source on the island, all the water is collected from the rain or trucked in
• Petroglyphs and artifacts have been found on the island that date back to the 700s

We're glad we took this trip even though have of it was spent getting there, and would love to explore more of the US and British Virgin Islands should we ever return. 

Cruz Bay Sunset 

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Have you been to the US Virgin Islands or St. John?  Leave your comments below!  Enjoyed this post? Never miss out on future posts by following us.