Tolbert Travels

Want to visit and explore the Virgin Islands National Park? Our family just got home from 9 nights in paradise, so here are all of our tips & itineary!

A few things to consider packing:

• Reef Safe Sunscreen (we bought Blue Lizard)
• Backpack insulated cooler (great for bring lunches on hikes!)
• Swimsuits that protect from the sun (click here to see a design I put our kids in a lot bc I love yellow!)
• Flip flops (wear tennis shoes), water shoes for kids
• Sun Shade & Beach Sheets (not needed, though, because all beaches had trees along the edges offering shade)
• Tube for babies/kids to use while adults snorkel
• Pack-n-play and stroller (was a great choice to bring for our 5mo. old) *We put her in the stroller at the dinner table when no one could really hold her. It was also helpful in the airports.
• Sun hats (women, men, & kids), snorkel leggings, sunglasses, swim shirts (men’s) etc.
• FOOD!! Food is more expensive on the island, so we bring all of our snacks and non-perishabables with us that we can fit.

Step 1: Choose the type of accommodation that works best for you in the national park! Click here to view your options. For our three-year-old and five-month-old, we decided that a mini-fridge was a huge perk, so we booked a cottage for the 9 nights we would be on island time. The nightly rate for 2 adults, 1 child & 1 infant was $225. We also wanted to be able to make meals easily and spend less money at the on-site restaurant. The Rain Tree Cafe (restaurant on premises) was delicious and is open all week to campers & visitors. They are open from 7:30am-9:30am for breakfast and 5:30pm – 8pm for dinner. There is food truck on site and open from 11am – 4pm for lunch. We chose to make our own meals every night, with the exception of the last two. The portion sizes are generous. Below is a sneak peak of some of the items we enjoyed:

Cottage ammentities: NO WIFI (only at restaurant/hang out area), mini fridge & freezer, cooler, all bedding (linens can be turned in every Tuesday & Thursday), reef safe shampoo/body wash, silverware, plates, bowls, propane gas grill (gas included), ceiling fans/lights, electric outlets, a queen bed, a day ged/sofa (w/trundle), bath towels & wash cloths, small indoor table and chairs, picnic table and two outdoor chairs per unit. The queen bed and day bed are in separate rooms. Each cottage can sleep 4 people.

Here are a few photos of the cottage and ammentites such as the bathhouse and wash station:

Accommodation Address: Cinnamon Bay Beach & Campground (1 Cinnamon Bay, St. John VI 00830) Telephone: 340-714-7144

Step 2: Book your flight 🙂 We used Google Flights and paid about $800/pp with American Airlines. Thankfully, our youngest is still a “lap baby,” so it costs less than $4 roundtrip for her for this direct flight. Don’t forget after booking your flight to call the airline and have your child (if under 2yrs in age) added to your ticket as a “lap baby” and add on their website.

Step 3: Plan your itinerary ahead of time, so you don’t have to do it on the trip. Here is what we did on our 9-night vacation on this beautiful island for the first time! & finally … GO! Life is too short not to.

DAY ONE: Fly into STT (St. Thomas). Two choices upon landing, unless you go with a private charter:

• Option 1: Take a taxi to the Red Hook or Charlotte Amalie ferry ports (we took a taxi to Red Hook, but on the way back, we took the longer ferry and only had to get a taxi from Charlotte Amalie) to reach Cruz Bay, St. John. Do not agree to get in someone’s taxi until they tell you how much they charge for luggage. *I would get a taxi to Charlotte Amalie next time instead of Red Hook, because more time on the boat is always welcome. We had 5 adults, 1 child, & 1 infant on this trip and paid $150 for us and our luggage to be taken from the airport to Red Hook. Yes, we got ripped off by that taxi driver. On the way back, we only needed a taxi from Charlotte Amalie to the airport and paid $75. We saved money by going through Charlotte Amalie instead of Red Hook. Helpful Link: Charlotte Amalie to Cruz Bay | St. John Ferry Ticketing (shows pricing, etc.)

• Option 2: Rent a jeep, car, or van. If you rent a vehicle on St. Thomas, then you will have to pay to have it ferryed across to St. John. I’m not sure if we would have saved money by just renting our own vehicle. We may do this next time just to see because it looks like we could have gotten a car for about $600.

Once you land in Cruz Bay, you can then approach a taxi driver and ask the cost to take your crew to the grocery store and then to Cinammon Bay Campground (or wherever you are staying). Our driver gave us 30 minutes. to shop at no extra cost. We split the list, raced around the store, and spent under $400. Tip: Pack as many things as you can in your checked bag (ex. salsa, tortillas, cereal, peanut butter, mayo, or whatever you want for meals) and carryons. If you have a baby then you can bring food pouches (yogurt, applesauce, etc.), baby food, ice packs, breast milk, etc. in a cooler or backpack. We love our backpack cooler for this purpose.

DAY TWO: Cinammon Bay

• We put both our kids in this inner tube, and I pushed them out to Cinammon Cay for good snorkeling. We saw 5 adult squid, lots of tropical fish, & a stingray with a fish on its back. We got to the beach by 9:30am and probably left around 5pm to walk back to our eco-cottage to make dinner. It was baby 40 steps from our front door to the soft sands. We would send one person back at lunchtime to grab our sandwiches out of the fridge and bring them down. We also ate crackers, chips, apples, and carrots for lunch.

DAY THREE: Cinnamon Bay & Maho Bay

Fun fact: After the woman died in 1836, her husband and sons all died within 10 years. Afterwards, we spent most of the day playing and swimming at Cinammon Bay. We did succeed in one slightly crazy adventure later in the afternoon. I climbed into the tube with both kids (our 5mo. old couldn’t sit by herself 100% in the tube) and Kristoff pulled us all the way to Maho Bay. He had help both ways from my dad and brother, but he was the constant. When we got to Maho Bay, Elias rode on my back with his water wings as I snorkeled. This allowed him to see sea turtles close up when they came up to get fresh air. If the trip had just been 2 weeks later, I think I could have had him put his face in more to see them, but this was at the beginning of the summer when he preferred to look at the things in the water from the surface above, haha. Maho Bay has a TON of seagrass, so there are lots of sea turtles that hang out there. I saw three at one time, which was really special. Love all of the sailboats anchored here. So pretty!

DAY FOUR: Trunk Bay Hawksnest Beach

We took a safari bus taxi (they are all open-air) to Trunk Bay to do their underwater snorkel trail. A woman at the campground that morning had told me it wasn’t worth it, and it was too crowded. We had already planned to go here because my dad bought the national parks senior pass, so he could get himself and three guests in for free. WRONG! The pass reduced the cost to $2.50 for my dad, but was not eligible to get three more people in. We were annoyed at the little ticket booth. We had just paid $30 to get dropped here, but then decided to pay another $20 to go to Hawksnest Beach (the woman I talked to earlier at the campground recommended this spot for snorkeling instead). It was peaceful, had beautiful reefs, and was WAY less touristy. It was a great day together!

DAY FIVE: Reef Bay Trail –> Genti Bay

We took a taxi back to Cruz Bay for $40, and then we hopped on the public bus to get dropped off at the Reef Bay Trailhead ($2/pp). This was the day we started to get smarter with taxi drivers. Kristoff was our official spokesperson who tried to always get us the best deals, haha. We hiked down to Genti Bay and ate lunch there before hiking back up. It was a little over 5 miles round trip. We love this Ergo carrier for hiking with our five-month-old. Our three-year-old walked or hitched rides from Grandpa, Uncle, and Daddy. Here are a few pics from Genti Bay: (notice seaweed)

The bus driver told us that a bus would be returning to the trailhead around 4pm. We hiked back there by 3:30pm just to be sure we wouldn’t miss it. We waited until 4:45pm when it finally showed up on island time. In all this time we were standing there we decided to only send one person into Cruz Bay for more groceries, and the rest of us would take a 1-mile trail back to Cinammon Bay. We got onto the bus and asked the driver to drop us off at the Cinammon Bay trailhead. He said, “No problem,” but in reality had no clue where this was.

We ended up miles from the trailhead. We walked road 206 & got to see the Catherineburg ruins, beautiful homes, and lots of down hills (hard on the knees). We literally walked the entire WIDTH of St. John. That was NOT on the itinerary. After writing about and reflecting on Day #5 … l think we will rent our own car next visit haha! It was a memorable adventure that’s for sure 🙂

DAY SIX: Cinammon Bay

After our 8+ hr adventure the day before, we just stayed at Cinammon Bay all day. Snorkeling, swimming, and building sand castles. I also read during naptime every day, as Arya slept beside me on the sheet.

DAY SEVEN: Leinster Bay & Annaberg Sugar Plantation Ruins

We took a taxi to the Leinster Bay trailhead and walked for .8 miles where we setup for the day. We snorkeled around Waterlemon Cay which boasted beautiful, incredible reef life. Highly recommend!! We were also able to walk like 20 steps from where we set up to ruins (Lower Estate Leinster Bay Ruins). The baby goats were super cute too!

After walking .8 miles back to the parking lot area, we walked up to the Annaberg Sugar Plantation Ruins. A reminder of when sugar reigned. As we imagined smelling rum & molasses in the air, we walked around a place where poeople were forced to labor all day. The dungeon was a rectagnuarl hole in the ground exposed to teh sun and elements. In Aug. 1834, a massic uprising of enslaved people forced King William IV of Great Britain to abolish slavery in the nearby BVI, over a decade before slavery ended on St. John. Annaberg is a relic of the Danish colonial era of Virgin Islands history, a time when St. John carried the Danish spelling “St. Jan” and the global demand for sugar soared. It is hard to imagine being forced to labor at this sugar mill in the scorching heat, while less than 2 miles away in the BVI slavery was abolished. I can’t imagine the courage it took to try to swim that far to freedom. A guardhouse was erected to try to catch these people. So terrible.

After leaving the ruins, we walked 1.4 miles back to Maho Bay to catch a taxi for the last mile back. We paid $7/pp to get to the ruins & trailhead that morning, so when we were quoted $6/pp to get back to Cinammon Bay I said, “Forget it. That is a ridiculous price. I’ll walk.” Kristoff rode in the taxi with all of our stuff & Elias. I walked! It was more about principle than money. It shouldn’t have been more than $4/pp. That night we ate our final home cooked dinner & watched the sunset at Cinammon Bay.

DAY EIGHT: Cinnamon Bay

It happend to be our 4th wedding anniversary, so we enjoyed reading, snorkeling, playing with the kids, and going out to eat that night at the Rain Tree Cafe. The Rain Tree Cafe is located in the main building beside the front desk and the store. This is where people go and sit to have wifi. I went up there a few times at night after the kids went to sleep to start gathering photos from everyone’s devices using Airdrop, writing, and posting about our adventures.

DAY NINE: Cinammon Bay

We hiked some of the Cinnamon Bay trail to the ruins (bear off to the left) and then spent the rest of the day at the beach. Kristoff & I snorkeled alone together around the cay. We spotted a few sea turtles on the way back to the beach, so we grabbed Elias and headed back out. He got to see them again which was special. We ate brownie sundaes for the second night in a row from the Rain Tree Cafe and played card games together after the kids went to sleep.

DAY TEN: Travel Home

We woke up and sadly made the trek back to STT. I miss the cicadas at night, the birds chirping happily in the morning, the tropical fish swimming around us, the deer eating breadfruit, the stars and planets seen in the night sky every night, snorkeling daily, the moongoose fight that took place outside of our window and scared K to death (woke up from a deep sleep to the sounds of snakes – I happened to already be awake nursing Arya), and the thirty or forty steps that were taken to go from our front door to the soft sands and clear waters. We made it home after midnight and already wished we could return.