June 2018
Getting my former girlfriend to go to a National Park with me was a feat in itself. She didn’t really do nature and while she enjoyed kayaking and beaches and other water activities, she didn’t particularly enjoy hiking. I mean everyone is different…so we just overlapped on the things we liked, so we just did the water things and I tried to avoid the sand as much as possible.
In the summer of 2018 I knew we had a few days off together. I had recently been promoted and trying to get time off at the same time was difficult, but we were able to manage a little less than a week off together, honestly 5 days overlapping her birthday – Mon-Fri. I wanted to go somewhere and do something different than we would normally do. The last few years we had celebrated her birthday locally with staycations or by going to the beach and spending some time as Florida beach resorts.
I first went the route of looking into a cruise and we were going to se about going on a Disney Cruise (I had never been on one before and it was her favorite cruise line). We both work at Walt Disney World, so sometimes we get incredible discounts for Disney experiences. Alas, the discounts in June 2018 just weren’t showing available and I couldn’t afford the cost of a non-discounted Disney Cruise.
I hoped onto trusty google flights and started to check out where we could go that would allow us to maximize our time together, but also have an adventure. Just a short connecting flight away I realized we could go to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, and then from there we could make the jump over to the neighboring island St. John. Approximately 2/3 of St. John Island is the US Virgin Islands National Park – perfect! Emily would get a beach vacation and I would be able to check a National Park off my list! I reached out to my parents who had visited the island 2 years previously and got their advice – and then I started planning in earnest.
I am all about being cost effective, so while my parents suggested renting a vehicle once we got to St. John, I decided we could save significant amounts of money by renting at their airport in St Thomas and taking a car barge to St John. After reflection, and years later, I would suggest not doing that, it was rather stressful and taking a person ship from island to island would have been faster and much less anxiety inducing. But – we made it!
Once we were on St John we stopped at a grocery store and picked up our supples and then started our drive to Coral Bay. The barges and main entry onto the island from St. Thomas to St John is from Cruz Bay. Cruz Bayis very bustling and busy, there are hotels and many rental properties there, as well as restaurants. It generally appears to be the main area for tourists. My parents had suggested staying in the Coral Bay Area because it would be less crowded and quieter, a little less hectic.
We rented a small bungalow in Coral Bay, a 1 bedroom location with a screened in porch overlooking the bay – it was adorable and perfect! It was someone’s vacation home and honestly, they were great hosts, and the property was perfectly situated. I loved it! (I’ve since looking for the property to try to rebook perhaps in the future, but its no longer on any of the websites for private direct rental, so I’m not sure if the property was sold or if the owners just didn’t want to rent out anymore – so when I go back I’ll have to find somewhere new!).
After our first night we were awoken by something banging next to the house, and as an anxious person, I thought we were for sure going to be murdered. I shouldn’t have been worried, it ended up being, what I assume, were feral goats eating the vegetation around the property. We headed out that day and went to different beach areas within the National Park – probably my favorite beach we went to that day was Mako Beach because there were about a million sea turtles just casually in the water that we were swimming with and snorkeling around. We also went to Trunk Bay (arguably the most famous beach in the National Park) and we did the snorkel “tour” in which the national park has placed signs in the reef with information about the reef and the wildlife, like you are on a nature hike – but underwater.
Over the next couple of days we swam, snorkeled, laid on the beach, and even went on a couple of short nature walks. And after our first two days on the island just the two of us, my parents joined us, because coincidentally, they were planning a trip to St John that happened to overlap with ours, so we were able to spend time with them.
Once we met up with them we went back to some of the same locations to snorkel and explore. And once we were with them, we ate out a bit more, as they are a little fancier (and financially stable) than us!
We had an incredible time visiting and exploring St. John and I would 100% go back! It only took about 2 hours of driving to start to get used to driving on the left side of the road with cars oriented the wrong way (the cars still had the driver on the left even though you also drive on the left, so that’s super weird). Despite the driving being a bit treacherous, the island was beautiful and the experience unparalleled. Th only issue with me revisiting the island and the national park is that there are so many other places around the world to see that I struggle with going on trips to old favorites when I could see so many new and beautiful things! It might be a trip I make back when I have children so I can share these experiences with them too.
Daring, Dangerous, and Defining 