People ask me which beach to go to the same way former students used to ask which teacher graded easy — as if there’s one correct answer that saves them the trouble of finding out for themselves. There isn’t. But I have seven answers I give often enough that they’re worth writing down, and none of them come with the word “paradise” attached.
1. Buck Island
Buck Island is the only entry on this list you can’t drive to, which is exactly why it hasn’t been ruined. You get there by boat, spend a couple of hours face-down over a reef protected as a national monument, and come back sunburned in places you forgot you had. I watched a chef I worked for lose a quiet little spot the week a magazine “discovered” it — same food, same room, ruined by a write-up and a parking problem. Buck Island has the same vulnerability and the same defense: it’s still a small hassle to get to. Keep it that way. Book the charter, wear the reef-safe sunscreen, and don’t ask the captain if there’s a faster route.
2. Dorsch Beach
Dorsch is really three beaches wearing one name, and which one you get depends on which way you turn out of the parking area. Turn toward Sandcastle and buy a day pass, and the waitstaff will keep your drink topped off without you ever noticing it was empty — after thirty years around restaurants, I can tell you that’s not luck, that’s training. Walk north from there and the crowd thins out along with the shade, and you end up swimming with turtles and reef fish that don’t seem to know they’re supposed to be camera-shy. Or skip Sandcastle entirely and head south toward the Vincent F. Mason Sr. Coral Resort, where you can claim a stretch of sand right off the road for free, or walk into the park itself for a pool, picnic tables, and a pavilion that’s shaded whether or not you paid anyone for the privilege.
3. Rainbow Beach and Cowboy Beach
Rainbow Beach has a restaurant on the sand and some of the most dedicated birders on the island, the kind who show up in full khaki with a lens long enough to need its own seat, aimed patiently at a pelican doing the same unremarkable thing a pelican does forty times a day. Walk north past Rainbow, though, and you hit Cowboy Beach, which nobody puts on a map because it isn’t trying to be found. It’s isolated, it’s quiet, and the snorkeling starts about ten feet from where you drop your towel. Have lunch at Rainbow. Take the walk anyway.
4. Cane Bay Beach
Cane Bay is the beach I send someone to when they can only pick one, because it’s the rare place that’s good at four different things instead of mediocre at ten. You park right off the road — no hike, no shuttle. The Cane Bay Wall is a real dive, not a marketing phrase, and the snorkeling ten feet off the sand is nearly as good if you never got certified. There’s shade if you want it and The Landing if you want a drink without leaving the beach, and if that’s still not enough, Off The Wall is a short walk east and Sprat Net is a short walk west. I’ve seen a lot of people leave a lot of beaches disappointed. I’ve never seen anyone leave Cane Bay that way.
5. Shoys / The Buccaneer
The Buccaneer’s stretch of coastline splits into three beaches, and each one is aimed at a different version of you. Mermaid Beach is the resort’s front door — palm shade, a restaurant, a water sports center, easy snorkeling, the works. It’s the beach for people who want the amenities within shouting distance. Grotto Beach, just around the point, is quieter, with its own pool and Beauregard’s on the Beach for sushi and a cocktail that arrives with more effort put into it than the occasion probably required. Then there’s Whistle Beach, tucked on the far side of the property, small and rugged and almost never mentioned — which, after enough years in real estate, I recognize as the tell that it’s the good one.
6. Jack’s and Isaac’s Beach
Jack’s and Isaac’s sit out on the east end and require an actual hike to reach, the kind of effort I used to make athletes run before a meet back when I coached track, on the theory that anyone unwilling to put in the work didn’t want it badly enough anyway. The trail isn’t marked especially well, which I’ve never decided is an oversight or a filter. Jack’s feels like your own private stretch of coast once you’ve earned it, a good place to sit down and stop sweating. Isaac’s, just past it, has some of the best snorkeling on the island when the water is calm enough to let you see it. Neither beach is for people who measure a good day by how close they parked.
7. Ha’Penny Beach
Ha’Penny is the beach for people who actually want to walk, not the photo of themselves having walked. There’s a small crew of regulars who do the full length of it every morning around seven, rain or not, the way other people go to a gym they’re paying for and don’t attend. The water stays calm and the waves are slow and small enough that it’s one of the few places on the island where a first-time surfer can get up without getting hurt or getting laughed at. Nobody’s rushing you off it, either.
The bottom line
That’s the list. None of these beaches need my help — they were here before Living St. Croix and they’ll outlast it. But if you’re only here for a week and don’t know where to start, start with whichever one sounds like the day you’re actually trying to have, not the one you think you’re supposed to want.
