This New Year, we spent a week in St. John, a small, hilly part of the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.  My husband and I had been there once before, 9 years ago, as part of a family trip to meet my brother’s fiancé’s family.  But, I’ll be honest, I didn’t remember much about it, other than seeing and swimming with a whole lot of turtles when we went snorkeling (which was incredible).  So, other than trying to make it back to some of the same beaches we went to before, in the hopes I’d get to see more turtles, it kind of felt like I’d be going back to a place I’d never been before.

The travels to St. John were uneventful.  There was a direct flight from Houston to St. Thomas on United that thankfully left and arrived on time.  Upon arriving at the airport in St Thomas, we collected our checked bags (which also thankfully arrived), and found a van taxi just outside the airport exit doors.  The van took us, as well as several other passengers, to the Red Hook port for the cost of $23 per person.  While on the van, we purchased ferry tickets from Red Hook, St. Thomas to Cruz Bay, St. John on the stjohnticketing.com website, which allowed us to essentially jump straight onto the next ferry when we arrived at the port.  We had already booked our vehicle (a 4 wheel drive jeep, which I originally thought might have been overkill, until it wasn’t… more on that later!) with Aqua Blu, and one of their representatives met us at the Cruz Bay ferry dock and took my husband, and our luggage, to the rental agency to get the car.  While he was doing that, since it was near dinner time, the kids and I went to Lovango Rum Bar to pick up take-out pizza, which we brought back to our lodging and ate while unpacking and getting ready for the days to come.  As a note, they drive on the left side of the road in St. John, so be prepared to spend the whole trip forgetting what side of the road you’re supposed to drive on!

Just about all of our days on St. John revolved around finding cool beaches to lay around on, with clear water to snorkel at; and at the same time somehow or another keep the kids fed.  Most of the beaches are small, with few if any services, so for all of those we just packed a lot of snacks, some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and some water and other drinks in our coolers.  There were two beaches we visited that had some food trucks nearby, so we took advantage of those when we could, as well.  We also were lucky in that the place we were staying had folding beach chairs, so we brought those with us too.  I’m a pretty non-bougie traveler, but I do prefer sitting in a chair over sitting on a towel on the sand when possible, so I was happy.   And my husband was happy to not pay for renting beach chairs at the one beach that had that possibility (Trunk Bay), so we both win!

Maho Bay, the beach we went to on day 1, was one of those beaches with a food truck.  The beach is long and narrow, with only a few feet between the road and shrubs, and the water.  But the water was very clear, and we saw two big sea turtles while we were snorkeling.  For lunch, we walked the ~1/4 mile to the nearest food truck, and had very enjoyable shrimp tacos.  Day 2 we went to Salt Pond Beach, which is the one beach I vividly remember from our first trip to St. John, for two reasons.  First were the sea turtles and the crystal clear water.  Second was for something I’d never seen before, and haven’t seen since:  a full halo rainbow encircling the sun, when it was directly overhead.  Salt pond was about an hour drive from where we were staying, but it was worth it.  The beach is decent (wide enough to play on, and big enough for people to spread out without taking other visitors’ space), and while snorkeling we saw 3 turtles, a barracuda, several sting rays, and a spotted eagle ray.  And, we stopped at Salty Legs for a late lunch on the way home, and the whole crew ordered burgers which were all very tasty.