Most beautiful Beach destination – St. Thomas!
Few days back we just returned from our mini trip to St. Thomas. We had such a great time. It was also my birthday during the trip. If you know me, I love traveling. So, when my husband suddenly said the tickets to St. Thomas are very cheap, should we go there. I excitedly said yes. 🙂
The first thing that crossed my mind was, how is COVID over there. What are the requirements etc.?
For those wishing to know, COVID negative test result is required within the 5 days of travel. We had scheduled our test, but due to snowstorm it got cancelled but luckily, we were able to get it done quickly from another testing site. They only require Rapid testing. Once you get your test results, you must fill out a form and send it to the U.S. Virgin Islands visitor’s site. They approve your travel. Only then, you can travel. They asked us to show the documents at the airport before boarding. They also collected the test results at the airport.
If you don’t know, U.S. Virgin Islands are divided into British and U.S. side. We only went to the U.S. side. You need visa and proper documents if you wish to travel the British side. You can easily do day trips on the British side.
A little about St. Thomas and US Virgin Islands
St. Thomas is a U.S. territory. Three islands make up the USVI: St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. The islands are in the Caribbean. There are ferries that go to all the islands. St. John is 20 minutes on ferry and St. Croix is 2 and half hours. There are flights also that go to St. Croix.
We went to St. John and it is highly recommended. The beaches on St. John are some of the best on the list of beaches in the world.
There is always a lot of history involved in visiting Caribbean islands and you should not miss out on that. There are lot of plantations and sugar mills. Charlotte Amalie has lot of Dutch colonial architecture. I loved the doors in downtown Charlotte Amalie. Chickens roam so freely everywhere on these islands.
We figured out all the necessary stuff and booked out tickets immediately. We also then booked our stay. We booked whole house. I want to tell you everything we did there before I forget about it.
The weather was awesome throughout the trip. Mind you we were traveling after a bad snowstorm that hit East coast. So, I was ready to take in any kind of weather, but it was so perfect. It showered couple of times, very briefly but the sun came out almost immediately. It was the best weather I could have wished for. We got tanned also.
After landing, we had some time before checking in, so we picked our rental car and decided to have leisure lunch and we started our trip with Caribbean food. We went to Glady’s Restaurant (pictures below). I would recommend you this place. They had some good options and service was great. I had my first taste of a dish called Fungi. It’s made with cornmeal and okra and served with a creole tomato sauce. My husband ordered jerk chicken sandwich that he loved it. We also enjoyed some pina coladas, after all we were on vacation.
Our rental house was on Red Hook on East End of the island. So, we also decided to take advantage of another location to visit on our way. It’s called Mountaintop. There is souvenir shop and you get a great view of Maagen’s Bay. It was so surreal and beautiful. The breeze was so amazing that we both felt like we could take a nap there. Lol. We spent some time there and decided to check in and spend rest of the day at the house.
On our way, we found a supermarket to buy some necessities like milk and wine, lots of snacks too.
We checked in the house and spent the evening sipping wine and enjoying the incredible views that the property had to offer.
We had dinner at a Sushi Thai Saki House. It was really good dinner, even though we were not too hungry we ate a lot.
Hope you like the pictures. Next week I will share more and what we did on my Birthday on the Island!
XO, Devangi