I just visited the Lesser Antilles for the first time, specifically the island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, during the first week of December 2024.

I’m fairly well-traveled for an American (at least in the industrialized world), having been to places like Russia, China, North Korea, Good Korea, et c. The following is a list of things that I was not expecting about the USVI.

• For historical reasons, they drive on the left, despite being part of the United States.

• For presumably economic and legal reasons, they use standard mainland US vehicles, which are the same left-hand drive types used in drive-on-the-right places. This is, of course, insane, and I suspect relatively unsafe.

• Like China, everyone drives with their high beams on 100% of the time at night without regard for other drivers.

• Despite being a pretty significant distance from the equator, they’re far enough south and thermally buffered by ocean that the water temperature even in December doesn’t dip under 70F. It’s full bore suntan-and-swimming weather even at the dead “coldest” part of the year.

• The electric grid is expensive, and trash. I understand it’s the same in Puerto Rico. All of the big resorts have HUGE generators.

• The roads are in the worst shape of anywhere I’ve ever been. Steep terrain, and foot-deep potholes suggest that vehicles don’t last very long there.

• Gasoline and diesel are very expensive at retail.

• There’s a big lack of fine dining; the island seems to be more geared toward discount vacationers and those arriving on cruise ships.

• A US Amazon Prime membership does not include free shipping to USVI. Shipping charges for most items looked to be $10-20 each. Shipping estimates were over 10 days out, which means that if you visit for 7 days as I did, you can’t use Amazon at all while you are there. Larger packages can’t be ordered from Amazon as they simply won’t ship them to those ZIP codes, period.

• Phone calls to the USVI are toll calls. The rest of the continental US effectively abolished long-distance toll charges for phone calls well over a decade ago. I went to call a NANP (+1-NNN-XXX-XXXX) number from my Google Voice account (which allows unlimited free calls to US numbers even with a zero balance) and received an error that my account didn’t have enough credit balance to make the call. I was floored. I suspect without evidence that this anachronistic state of affairs is due to deeply-rooted telco monopoly corruption, but I have done absolutely no research whatsoever on this matter.

• There are insanely strict firearms laws in the USVI. There is repeated and very insistent signage all over the arrivals area demanding that people declare any firearms or ammunition. It feels in this regard like visiting a foreign country.

• Outside of the shiny corporate resorts, the island is a lot more rural and poor and in disrepair than I anticipated. I understand that these days it gets proper fucked by massive hurricanes on a very regular basis.

• Flying back to the mainland US (ATL) from St Thomas (STT), an ostensibly domestic flight, one must pass through a US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) interrogation stop prior to the TSA security search checkpoint, same as when entering the US from a foreign country. All passengers passing through the departure hall are funneled into this area, regardless of destination. I presume this is a result of the fact that CBP claims jurisdiction anywhere within 50(?) miles of the US border, which encompasses most major cities in the US as well as the entirety of the USVI. They asked me the usual nosy (and optional, for a US citizen) questions. They commanded(!) me to stand for a biometric-capturing photo, and responded punitively when I inquired if it was optional (they said yes) and I declined: standard mainland CBP asshole behavior, just with an island accent. (I’ve had the same kind of aggressive, indignant, rude, and unprofessional treatment from CBP upon exercise of 5A and 6A rights before, over and over and over again for many years now. The US supreme court, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that 4A rights do not apply to US citizens at the US border.)

• Everywhere I visited seemed to be a tourist trap, though I did not very dilligently seek any non-tourist-trap activities, areas, or excursions, as I was there on a bog-standard beach tourist holiday.

• The weather, while a bit humid for my Mojave-adapted preferences, is completely fantastic.

• There are very nice beaches and very nice swimming, something I have not often experienced on coastlines of Big Ocean. I’m told that the beaches are all public, though the usual issue remains in such places: many are walled off so you can only access them via secured private property, or boat.

• It seems like a nice place to go diving, or sailing. The water is nice and I got to snorkel with some sea turtles. There are tons of boats around, from star-destroyer-sized mega cruise ships (multiple per day), to the superyachts of billionaires (I saw “Kaos”, the yacht of the Walmart heiress, among others), to little family fulltime sailboats. It’s as active a port as I’ve ever seen.

• Like a lot of small tourist islands, the airport is filthy, cramped, over-crowded and under-air conditioned. (Unrelated: I observed that JTR fixed this about theirs within the last few years.)

Discussion

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