Season and Weather

We arrived St. Croix on August 1, 2021, at the start of the hurricane season and luckily departed just before a tropical storm moved in. It’s important to pay attention to the forecast if you rent a car because you will be responsible for weather-related damages. Other than the tropical storm, it briefly rained every morning at about 6-7am, but the rest of the time was mostly dry.

Food

We like to cook when we travel, and due to the Delta variant and general suckiness of restaurant food compared to what we cook, we never ate out during the trip. Our favorite place to pick up groceries was the Seaside Market and Deli. Our best food purchase was Baron West Indian hot sauce made in nearby St. Lucia. It went great with everything.

Snorkeling

We took Big Beard’s Adventure Tours on three trips, two to Buck island and a “sunset cruise”. On our second trip to Buck Island, we planned to hike to the top, but it was cut short due to the Parks Service closing the island at 5pm (we arrived on the island at 4:30pm). Big Beard’s volunteered to swap the trip for the sunset cruise. All of the cruises were great, with friendly and attentive staff and free, albeit weak, vodka punch.

Warning: We purchased SPF 50 sunscreen from the gift shop at Big Beard’s. For some reason, this sunscreen was really ineffective for my wife. By day 3, she had a painful burn on her upper back and shoulders, it was so bad that it interruped her sleep. Other travelers reported similar issues with this sunscreen. We had better luck with the SPF30 “Blue Lizard” brand that we were able to find at the local K-Mart. By law, all sunscreen brands sold on St. Croix are “Reef Safe” to prevent damage to the local reef ecology. My wife now says it’s really important to pay attention to the Zinc Oxide and Titanium Dioxide content on the brand labels rather than the SPF number – the Blue Lizard brand had higher numbers than the one sold at Big Beard’s.

Car Rental

Strongly consider renting a Jeep, some of the beaches and roads will require a high-clearance vehicle. We rented a Jeep from Centerline.

Beaches

Cane Bay Beach was by far the best beach we visited. We also tried to visit Mermaid Beach, but the staff at the Buccaneer Resort prohibited entry due to concerns about beach crowding and COVID —- however there was no one on the beach when we cruised by later that day.

Accommodations

We stayed in the hills east of Christiansted in a 4 bedroom house with a pool and, most importantly, a kitchen and grill. It’s tucked away in a valley and required driving down a steep and rough dirt road. However, the views and seclusion were easily worth the extra drive time. I can’t give you an exact street address because maps don’t exactly show the road, but you can see it on a map here: https://goo.gl/maps/x2y99H34T5xsmvVa8.

Travel

We took American from DFW to STX via Charlotte. Unsurprisingly, Spirit canceled half their flights while we were on the island. If you have an 8am flight out, get to the airport by 6am. There will already be a line, and they won’t start screening travelers until 7am, so it can get really backed up and you could easily miss your flight while standing in the security line. Do not attempt to bring plants from the island to the U.S. mainland - there are tropical bacteria that could infect mainland soil.

Going Back

We really enjoyed our trip to St. Croix and would happily return. If we were to go back, I really want to hike Buck Island and also some of the East-side hikes like Goat Hill.