If you are a United States citizen, you do not need a passport. You will have to go through customs when you are ready to head back to the U.S., but you can do that without a passport. Check with the U.S. Department of State for a list of identification that is acceptable to use to get back into the U.S.

It’s best to land on St. Thomas (STT). You won’t need a passport to get here from anywhere in the U.S.

At the exit of baggage claim, you will see many taxi drivers ready to greet you. There is a Taxi Foreman. Wait for them to greet you and ask where you are headed. Let them know you are headed to Red Hook Ferry. (You should have cash with you. There is one ATM at the airport and it is often out of order)

• Note: There is an option to take a ferry from Charlotte Amelie too. The Charlotte Amelie Ferry is not as consistent as the Red Hook Ferry. It’s a shorter taxi ride and a longer scenic boat ride, but sometimes you may sit on the dock for hours waiting for the boat to leave. So we suggest to all our guests at RendeView House and Palmy Daze Condo that they take the Red Hook ferry. It’s a commuter ferry that all the locals count on. It leaves every hour on the hour. Sometimes more during rush hour.

At Red Hook (again, you will want cash here too) you will need to purchase tickets for the ferry to St. John. You can purchase these tickets beforehand but you can’t buy luggage tickets beforehand. So you will need to jump in line to purchase tickets if you are putting luggage on the ferry.

It’s about a 10-15 minute ferry ride. You can sit upstairs and get some sun or you can enjoy the AC downstairs on the ferry.

Once you dock on St. John, if you have luggage, you will need to wait off the boat for your luggage. Don’t grab it if you see it on the boat. It’s a customs regulation that the staff has to get it off the boat for you. Plan to tip them a couple of dollars when they give you the luggage.

Walk off the dock and be greeted by your transportation or a taxi. If you are getting a ride with a taxi, they do not know physical addresses on the island. You will need to know landmarks to tell the driver. For example, “Please take us 1 mile past the Westin to ____ Street.” Or “Please take us 3 miles up Centerline past the hospital”.

For a full rundown of what you need to know about traveling to St. John, check out our How To Get To St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands from the United States Mainland article.

Cell phone coverage is decent on St. John. You are in the United States and sometimes your phone will pick up a signal from Puerto Rico. So watch your cell phone bill after your stay. If there is a charge/fee on your bill for international rates, call your cell phone service provider, let them know you were in the U.S. Virgin Islands and they will promptly return the fee.

As an added perk of staying with us, our RendeView House and Palmy Daze Condo properties have a vehicle included with your property rental. On average, that’s a $100 per day savings versus renting a car and staying at a different island property.

We always suggest renting a car on St. John before your trip. As opposed to renting on St. Thomas or relying on taxi services. Here’s why:

• The island can run out of cars so don’t wait until you get there!
• Some people choose to rent a vehicle on St. Thomas and then drive over to the car barge at Red Hook.
• Pros of this are that you may save a couple of bucks and you could do some grocery shopping before St. John.
• Cons don’t outweigh the benefits. At least to us, they don’t. (1) If you take a rental car over to St. John, and the car breaks down, you could be stuck for days before they come to exchange cars. (2) two separate companies are running the car barge. You get a discounted rate if you buy round trip tickets. BUT if you purchase this discounted round trip ticket and your return ride happens to be on the other companies barge (which you won’t know until you get on the barge), you will be paying again for another ticket and you can go ahead and throw away the other round trip barge ticket you purchased, or stay on the barge dock another hour or two until the correct barge hopefully arrives. This is not how we like to spend our time in the Caribbean. (3) And finally, driving on St. Thomas with all the stoplights, taxi drivers, and back roads is very difficult especially when you’re driving on the left. Learning to drive on the left is much easier when you are on St. John already.

There are concierge services on the island that will do the shopping for you. There is no Instacart.

At Blue Skies Property Management, our St. John based Property Manager will do this for you for a fee. Starfish Market and Dolphin Market are the best grocery stores on St. John. Both have online shopping available. From our recent experience in 2023, Dolphin had much better produce. But that has tendencies to change based on the season. So please check for yourself. Prices are expensive. Be ready for the sticker shock. But they are comparable in price. It is expensive for the stores to get the food to the island. Anything refrigerated is also very expensive due to how hard it is to get it there refrigerated and stored refrigerated for shopping.

Cars on St. John have steering wheels on the left just like cars all over the United States but you are required to drive on the left. This is confusing but be prepared to drive on the left. Reversing out of parking spots, turning at intersections, and going through the one traffic circle on the island are the most difficult parts of this. But you typically get used to it pretty fast. It helps that driving on the island is pretty slow. With all the hills and curves on the island, you will likely never get above 30-40 mph. If you get going faster than that, slow down and enjoy the island.

In the mainland United States, it’s very easy to plug an address into our phones and follow directions to get to our destination. It’s not the same on the island. The island has never really begun marking/using physical addresses. Maps will be your friend. Blue Skies Property Management offers YouTube videos of how to get to each of our homes. Other homes may do the same. Figure out the directions to the home you are staying at before your trip.

It is socially expected for all conversations to begin with “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, or “Good evening”. Locals and island natives will feel that you are very rude if you do not show this simple courtesy to them. It’s not a bad habit to get into in the States too

Daylight savings time doesn’t apply to St. John. If it is daylight savings time in the States, it doesn’t change on the island. So you could potentially be an hour behind on the island. If so, you are officially on “island time”. Embrace it.

United States currency is used on the island. You will need cash for taxis, tipping luggage porters off the ferry, and ferry tickets. There are 5-6 ATMs on the island and can be found by the ferry dock as well as at Starfish Market.

There are no Uber, Lyft, or reliable taxi services from private homes on St. John. We always suggest renting a car when visiting St. John. There are plenty of taxis at the ferry dock. You won’t miss a taxi when getting off the ferry. But when you need a ride from your rental home, that’s when you will wish you had a rental car.

When you stay with us at one of our St. John properties, our on-site property manager will meet you at the ferry dock and take you to your property at no charge. Think of it as our way of saying, “Welcome to paradise! Thanks for staying with us!”

As an added perk of staying with us, our RendeView House and Palmy Daze Condo properties include a vehicle with your property rental. On average, that’s a $100 per day savings versus renting a car and staying at a different island property.

The island has laws against selling certain sunscreens on the island due to some chemicals found in standard sunscreen negatively affecting coral and marine life. For a listing of approved sunscreens, please visit Island Green Living.

Young children need a lot of things! Car seats, pack-and-plays, cribs, fold-out beds, baby monitors, and more. All these things can make packing a nightmare. But there is a company that will deliver these items to rental properties to be there before you arrive! Island Baby VI has very affordable prices and we can vouch for them being a wonderful company from the days when our children needed those items too.

Ants and mosquitos are part of island life. At the beach, try to hang your cooler up on a tree if possible to keep ants out. At your home, try to refrigerate as much food as you can. This is the safest place for food on the island. Depending on the time of year, mosquitos can be a bother. We definitely recommend packing mosquito bracelets in your luggage and bringing them with you. We usually hang one on each of our beach chairs. Also, plan to bring some bug spray in case the breeze at the beach isn’t keeping them at bay.

August-November is hurricane season on St. John. If you are traveling during these times:

1. Make sure to purchase trip insurance
2. Check the weather before your trip to see if hurricanes are expected
3. If the forecast does show rain, don’t fret. A lot of the time it will rain on one side of the island and not the other. When it’s raining on North Shore, we usually pack our bags and head to Salt Pond Bay or Lameshur Bay past Coral Bay. Usually, it’s not raining at both. Coral Bay is known as the “wet side of the island” but that doesn’t always hold true.