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Tips for visitors

St. John Tours: See the Island with Me!

St. John Tours: See the Island with Me! 1

Hello everyone and happy Thursday! We just wanted to take a quick moment today to remind you all that we conduct island tours here on St. John.

We started conducting island tours in each 2017, and the reception has been amazing! I absolutely love this island, and I love sharing that love with all of you. Whether this is your first visit to the island or if you are a repeat guest, I guarantee you will see something new. In fact, at least half of my guests are repeat visitors to the island!

During your tour, we will do a little sightseeing – St. John has some of the most beautiful views in the world. We will check out some of the island’s stunning beaches – who doesn’t want to dip their toes in our beautiful Caribbean waters! We can stop at one or more of the island’s sugar plantation ruins, and we can even do some light hiking if you’d like. I can guarantee some sea turtles sightings and we usually stumble on the donkeys too! I will tell you about the history of the island, and I can share with you the current happenings on island. Most importantly, we will have fun!

So you may be wondering what makes my tour different from the other island tours? Well, what makes us different is that we are the only, personalized tour on St. John. I will take guests pretty much anywhere they want to go. The taxi tours are sometimes limited in where they are able to go, but not us. I enjoy taking my guests off the beaten path and to out-of-the-way spots that they would typically never see. Another difference is that I can only take up to four guests and I never combine groups, so it’s a more private and personal tour. When I am out and about with my guests, it’s more like I am out with friends. And I love that.

So what types of tours do we offer? Well here are the details:

  • Half-Day Tours: For those of you who want to see a great deal of the island, but do not want to commit a whole vacation day to a tour, our three-hour, half-day tours are for you! These tours are great for those of you who would like to see the island from the eyes of an insider, but you do not want to commit to an entire day to touring the island. During this tour, we can still do some sightseeing, we can check out the beaches, ruins, and do some super light hiking (like a tenth of a mile walk in the woods to a beautiful site) while learning about the island’s history and current happenings. The only difference with this tour is that the stops are a bit shortened when compared to our full day tours. We offer half-day tours from 9 a.m. to noon or from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The cost for a half-day tour is $300.
  • Full-Day Tours: Our full day tour is five hours long and includes a lunch stop in Coral Bay or over at Lime Out. During these tours, we can see nearly the entire island if you’d like to. We can check out the beaches, ruins, hiking trails and more! If you’d like to spend some time snorkeling with the turtles, we can do that! Want to see the more obscure, out of the way places? We can do that too! Again, all tours are completely customizable, so we will do exactly what you want! Don’t have an itinerary? Well we’ll provide options and you can choose what you would like to do and see! The cost for a full-day tour is $425.
  • Land and Sea Tours: We offer St. John’s only land and sea tour. For this tour, we partner with our friends at Flyaway Charters in Coral Bay. These tours are six hours long. For our land and sea tours, guests spend the first half of the tour exploring on land with me, and then they spend the second half of the day on the water with Flyaway Charters. These tours are really the best of both worlds for someone who wants to see all that St. John has to offer in just one day. You can do some snorkeling at some great offshore spots and even visit Pizza Pi, the Caribbean’s floating pizza boat, or Lime Out, St. John’s floating taco boat! Flyaway Charters can also provide a great deal of history of the island. The cost for a land and sea tour is $600. Fuel for the boat is not included, and costs between $50 and $100 depending on where you choose to travel.

All prices are per tour.

Don’t they all sound great! Who is ready to book??!

If you are staying in the Cruz Bay area, I will happily pick you up right at your villa, condo or hotel. If they are staying outside of the Cruz Bay area, we can arrange a meeting point. We’ll pick you up with a cooler filled with water and ice, and if you’d like, we can bring along a jug of Painkillers for an additional $50 fee. We have beach chairs, noodles and boogie boards for you to use throughout the day. And to make your day even better, we can even take the top off of the Jeep!

You can book directly with me either by emailing me at [email protected], or by messaging me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/newsofstjohn. Please let me know which tour you prefer, as well as your preferred date.

Want to know what other guests have said? Then please check out my reviews on TripAdvisor.

I look forward to meeting you all and showing you just how amazing this little island is! Thanks everyone, and have a great day!

Tag: St. John Tours

Help Track the 2013 Hermit Crab Migration

Photos by Steve Simonsen
The 2013 hermit crab migration and a close up of the Caribbean hermit crab. Photos by Steve Simonsen.

It happens often, and it’s pretty cool. Thousands of hermit crabs migrate in the US Virgin Islands and on St. John. Researchers are looking for your help this year in their efforts to track the predicted 2013 migration.

Their request is pretty simple: If you happen to come across hermit crabs anywhere on the island, they would like to know about it. This could be in your backyard, at your villa, on a trail or even on a roadway or in a parking lot. Researchers are asking that you make note of the date, time, location, number seen, as well as the direction they are traveling (toward or away from the water). Once you jot down that information, please fill out their questionnaire which can be found here. You can help determine when and where the hermit crabs are migrating.

Last year’s hermit crab video taken by Steve Simonsen was so incredible, it went viral. To date, it’s received more than 476,000 views on Vimeo and YouTube.

Check out last year’s video here:

Best Invention Ever?

Best Invention Ever
Lollie from St. John Brewers

Check out this fun little gadget we stumbled on over at St. John Brewers. It’s called a Lil’ Suckers Beer Magnet and it just may be the best invention ever. (We’re easily impressed over at NOSJ. We’re also pretty big nick-nack fans.)

Here’s how it works:

Place a bottle, glass or can into the the ring, stick it to any flat surface and voilà! It sticks!

The folks over at St. John Brewers say it’s great for boating. We here at NOSJ also think it’s great for kids who love to spill their beverages.

Pop over to St. John Brewers or visit their online store here. The Lil’ Suckers Beer Magnet retails for $7.

 

Packing List: Swimsuits and Twizzlers

To judge from comments on some of the St. John travel forums, a lot of people have more then flip flops, t-shirts, and magazines in their luggage.

Many also have food. Which results in folks trading tips about what to bring, and how.

Tinkerbelldee says granola bars, coffee, Splenda, and Crystal Light are among her must-packs. Besides several cans of Pringles, "In our small backpack cooler, I have chicken, hamburger, bacon, and cheese. ( I am picky about certain things, meat being one of them)."

It's not the high cost of groceries on St. John that prompts people to bring their own food. Convenience is a big factor, as well as being sure you've got what you like. "Because I'm a little bit of a foodie and just want to have certain things. And this foodie likes to have her Twizzlers and Gummisavers poolside!," said Mari6625.

Bluewater43 has this strategy: "Vacuum pack & freeze anything … at least a week ahead. Morning of the trip, throw everything in the cooler, packing lunchmeat & cheese in-between the frozen meat. Don't use ice packs at all (can't in carry-on) and everything is still frozen 8 hours later when we arrive." In that cooler – steaks, pork tenderloin, chicken breasts, burgers and Italian sausages.

The whole concept was news to Cfbbnell." I didn't know you could bring meat as a carry on! We are serious about our meat – 3 freezers in the garage. We buy whole cows, hogs and lambs. Being able to pack it into a cooler for the trip is awesome."

St. John not ‘bizarre’ enough for cable show


image from t2.gstatic.com
Andrew Zimmerman is the guy you see on the Travel Channel eating the most awful things. He’s tasted (enjoyed?) baked muskrat in Baltimore, deep fried piglet testicles on a hog farm in Iowa, and fermented fish eggs on an island in Alaska. 

And since he was a boy, he’s spent some time on St. John. Zimmerman told the St. John Source that he used to visit St. John, with his mother, a lot.  Every few years, they’d rent a villa for a vacation.

“There is a great park, a couple of fantastic hotels and restaurants. Cruz Bay is a great little town. But,” he said, “I wouldn't call it a hot bed of indigenous or local cultures, right?” 

That’s why he really likes St. Croix.  Its economy is not dependent on tourists or catering to their mainland tastes.  St. Croix’s culture stands and has not been deemphasized.

“I do not want to come to the islands for a half-baked version of French or Italian food,” he told the Source.  “You see it on every island.  There is no island that is immune to that disease.”

What does Zimmerman like about St. Croix? Reef fish, rotis, pates, produce, and bull foot soup.

Villa rentals help St. John children

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Three years ago, Bruce Claflin had an idea.  

The result was Kids First!, a VI based non-profit that supports education on St. John.  

He calls it a creative marketing program to promote island villas to renters, particularly those who are repeat guests on the island and have formed a deep attachment to St. John.  Participating villa owners agree to donate two percent of gross rental income to Kids First!. 

It’s a win-win situation. Renters know that at no additional cost to themselves, their rental of a villa will directly help the children of St. John.  Villa owners differentiate their rental properties from those that don’t participate, and the children of St. John benefit through the grants that are provided.   

There are currently 10 homes in the program which have been an important source of funding for the $130,000 of grants delivered by Kids First!.

Proper packing for Paradise

Snoopy7982 raises this interesting question at the Virgin-Islands-On-Line forum for St. John.

"What clothes do I need other than bathing suits, cover-ups and sundresses? Can my husband wear shorts in all restaurants or should he bring some slacks?"

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Seems like a lot of people have the same answer.  "Each time we go, we vow to bring less and less," is the way FourStreams put it.  "From 3 golf shirts to 1 … from 3 pairs of nice shorts to 1 … 4 tee shirts to 2." And, since many villas have a washer and dryer (ask your management company), that helps reduce what you need to bring."

Read moreProper packing for Paradise

Park Friends announce winter seminars

An ambitious schedule of dozens of classes, tours, and workshops has been announced by the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park.  If you’re interested in learning more about the island’s natural and cultural heritage, from experts, these are the tickets.

ScheduleThe offerings include classes on making batik, creating flowers from recycled glass, painting with pastels, tropical photography, and making pepper sauce.  You can also sign up for a marine biology sailing trip, a building green house tour and a native plant hike.

Other examples:

  • Local historian David Knight will host a tour of downtown Cruz Bay on January 6.  He will describe its founding in 1766 and his own recent efforts to have the area recognized as a Historic District.
  • Another class, on Feb. 25, will feature Eddie Bruce, a master drummer, in a night of ethnic percussion and a celebration of the full moon.  He will demonstrate ritual techniques of both West African and Afro-Caribbean cultures.

The cost of the seminars run from $25 to $155. The Friends organize the educational seminars every year to increase awareness and enjoyment of the Park. 

St. John on the iPhone

The Inquiring Iguana has found three more apps for the iPhone and iPad focused on the island.

Pariser Explore St. John was written by Harry Pariser and published by Sutro Media. He's a prolific travel writer with 20 travel books to his credit.  The app is undoubtedly based on his Explore the Virgin Islands, now in its fifth edition. 

Folks who have used the $3.99 app say it's OK, but not special. "There's nothing on it you couldn't find somewhere else, but it's nice to have it in one central location," said cmw5682 at Virgin islands On-Line. SOonthebeach added, "It is still fun to look through to get reminders of places we have forgotten."

Targeting the wedding market is MagazineCloner.com. It's offering an app of Virgin islands Wedding and Honeymoon magazine for $1.99.   The electronic version has articles about the USVI and BVI, including resources couples can use to plan their big day.

St john appl The St. John App was published a few months ago. The iTunes Store description says the island guide was made by a local and includes maps, driving tours, guides to hiking trails and restaurant information. One reviewer, JMoody83, said "This app made our time on island so easy … can't imagine trying to get around without it." Now FREE!

Got any other St. John (or Travel) apps the Iguana should know about? Share them in a comment here.

Best things to do on St. John

A person on the TripAdvisor forum inquired about the 10 best things to do on the island.  More than a dozen people responded with many more than 10 things. 

Predictably, there are a lot of recommendations for drinking and eating and beaching.  But when it came down to asking for suggestions, St. John veterans were  recommending specific drinks and menu items and activities,  Quite a few also for a trip to the BVIs, although at least one person said there's enough to do on St. John, period – a BVI visit might best be done on a second trip.

Food

  •     Blue Burger at Skinny's
  •     Dining at the  bar at Zozo's (make a reservation!)
  •     Vie's for garlic chicken and conch fritters
  •     Deli Grotto for sandwiches
  •     Lobster Roll at the Tourist Trap
  •     Have Ted's Suppler Club cater a meal to your villa
  •     Fish and chips at Shipwreck Landing
  •     Caesar Salad with Blackened Mahi at Banana Deck   

Beaches

  •     Gibney Beach
  •     Cinnamon Bay
  •     Hawksnest
  •     Maho

Drink

  •     All the beers at St. John Brewers (Mongoose Junction)
  •     Bushwhackers at the Beach Bar
  •     Drink Right, Keep Left at the Tourist Trap (Coral Bay)

Entertainment

  •     Live music at the Beach Bar
  •     Open Mic night at Sun Dog Cafe

Hiking

  •     Reef Bay Trail
  •     Ram Head, snorkeling at Blue Cobblestone
  •     Leinster Bay, and snorkel Watermelon Cay
  •     Look for seaglass at Lameshur, then snorkel