Today is a recap of our trip to St. John, which was the last stop in our Caribbean vacation. We stayed there from Thursday to Sunday and had a fantastic time.

Travel Troubles

St. John was the part of the trip that I was most excited about because I’ve always wanted to go there. B and I were chatting about the day before leaving Scrub Island, and we decided to change our travel plans to leave SI a bit earlier on Thursday. This way we could get to St. John around lunch time maximize our first day there. We even called and reserved a Jeep so that we could go out and explore the island.

Sooooo our travel plans got derailed when the ferry we planned on taking from Tortola to St. John got cancelled. We had gotten up early, left Scrub Island and taken a long taxi ride to the ferry station when we discovered this. And this was especially disappointing because we had called the confirm the ferry the day prior. The staff at the ferry station was not helpful and kind of added to the frustration of the situation. To make a long story short, we ended up taking a ferry back to St. Thomas, taking a taxi to a different ferry station and then hopping on the ferry to St. John. We got there a lot later than planned, which was a bummer.

Exploring the Island

We spent most of the day Thursday driving around the island. Restaurants and shops had colorful maps for free and there are only a few main roads, so directions were pretty easy. Something that surprised me about St. John is how hilly it is. I would never live there without 4WD. Some of the inclines and declines were so steep that I was getting scared riding in the car. They also drive on the left side of the road.

There were families of goats that wander around the island. We passed them many times throughout our stay!

Hiking

St. John is part of the National Parks which meant there were so many hiking trails! We primarily wanted to hike the Reef Bay Trail, which takes you to some historical petroglyphs (something St. John is known for). It’s recommended that you do the hike with a park ranger for $40 so that you can hike only one way (3 miles downhill) and take their boat back instead of hiking back up. The hike is very strenuous uphill. We didn’t realize that they only offered that service on specific days, none of which were days that we were visiting. We went back and forth about whether to do the hike without the ranger but ultimately decided to skip out on this time.

We decided to hike the Ram Head Trail instead. It was still strenuous but was a lot shorter.

It was so hot. I saw approximately 1,000 hermit crabs. Ended with the best. view. ever.

Food

Eats. So many good eats.

We really loved many of the restaurants on St. John. There is a nice area of restaurants, bars, and shops right near our condo in Cruz Bay and we were able to walk to lunch and dinner. Here were some of our favorite places.

Aqua Bistro

We stopped at Aqua Bistro in Coral Bay as we were exploring the island on the first bay. Great view and excellent seafood.

Colombo’s Smoothie Shack

Very well known for their smoothies, and for good reason! We split one and it was delicious.

Woody’s

Woody’s is a casual bar and restaurant in Cruz Bay. Very simple and casual menu but the seafood was so good!

We Caught the VT Game one night

The Longboard

This restaurant was so good that we actually ate there twice. It was our favorite restaurant on the island! The menu was so fresh, the food and drinks were great and the service was even better. Highly recommend them!

The first time: We ordered a ton of small plates that night including scallops, coconut shrimp, sliders, fresh rolls and lettuce wraps.

The second time we went there was the night before we left. We loved the restaurant so much that we wanted it to be our last meal on the island. I really liked the fresh rolls and but switched up some of the other plates:

Snorkeling in Maho Bay

We went snorkeling in Maho Bay, which is well-known for having sea turtles. We saw a ton of turtles! They were huge- one of them was the size of my whole body. There were also sting rays and little sharks. Spending the day out on a beautiful beach and seeing all of the animals was such a cool experience. What I loved the most was that it was not on an “excursion” but rather enjoying the natural waters of the ocean at St. John.  I wanted to end my trip recap with that because it was such an amazing experience.

If I could describe my dream career, it would be being able to work virtually and live wherever I wanted. I always picture myself working in the morning and then spending the day reading on a beach, snorkeling, and being outside. St. John seemed like the perfect place for that, and we enjoyed meeting so many locals who quit their 9-5 job to move to the Caribbean and live a more peaceful life. #dreams

Our trip to St. John was everything that I had hoped it would be.  It’s fun to really want to visit a destination and then finally get the opportunity to do so. I think that St. John and Scrub Island will always be 2 destinations on my travel itinerary because they were so amazing.