US Virgin Islands - St. Thomas
Activities on St. Thomas include shopping and sightseeing.
St Thomas is the US Virgin Island most reknown for its duty-free and luxury shopping. Other activites on this Caribbean island include walking tours and water sports.
The US Virgin Islands are all popular vacation getaways in the Caribbean. St. Thomas, in particular, is a major shoppers' tourist destination. St Thomas is a major port of call for ocean liners, so tourists taking a Caribbean cruise vacation disembark for a day trip of whirlwind shopping and sightseeing here.
How's the shopping?
Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the US Virgin Islands, is also the most popular cruise stop in the entire Caribbean. It's really quite a shopper's paradise. Most cruise ships dock at Havensight Cruise Ship Dock or in the Charlotte Amalie Harbor. The large amount of high end, retail, and duty-free shops in Charlotte Amalie make it very appealing for tourists taking trips on a cruise ship. The duty-free exemption for travelers making a purchase here is $1200, and families can combine their purchases.
There are so, so many stores to windowshop in downtown Charlotte Amalie, but shoppers seem to have a special affinity for buying upscale jewelry while on Caribbean trips. It could be that the bright Caribbean sun adds an extra sparkle to those gemstones, who knows? In any case, the abundance of high-end jewelry stores reflects merchants' knowledge of tourists' shoppng preferences.
Besides jewelry, the best shopping on St. Thomas seem to involve cameras, high-end watches, and perfume. Duty-free alcohol is also a major seller. The three major shopping thoroughfares on St. Thomas run parallel to each other in Charlotte Amalie; they are Main Street, Back Street, and Waterfront. All three are very busy during the holidays and Spring Break weeks. If you want to haggle for discounted prices, do it here rather than at smaller, individually-owned stores. I've heard that store owners on Main Street are more willing to haggle when there isn't a flurry of cruise ship passenger-related activity, so time it right if you can!
Okay, I'm done shopping. What else is there?
There are plenty of other St. Thomas activities besides maxing out your credit cards. As with the other US Virgin Islands, the snorkeling and scuba diving is great (although it's best at St. John). The beach sand is especially soft, having come from ground-up coral instead of land-bound rocks - so the beaches are easy to navigate barefoot. You'll have to get away from the major ports of call to find relative seclusion and privacy, of course, but it can be found. Water sports and deep-sea fishing trips are advertised everywhere - just ask your hotel concierge or B&B host for recommendations.
Historical tours of St. Thomas area also available. St. Thomas has the best preserved historical district in the Caribbean, with the most attention to its anthropologic past. This includes the Carib and Arawak tribes, the slavery of Africans brought over to work in sugar mills, and purchase of the islands by the USA in 1917.
- The American-Caribbean Museum has guided tours and is adjacent to the shopping area of Main Street in Charlotte Amalie.
- Sugar mills dating from the 1700's still dot the landscape, and tour groups hike to them and hear about the Danish West Indies, when Denmark occupied what would later be the US Virgin Islands.
- Remember Pirates of the Caribbean? Silly question, I know, but St. Thomas was a real-life haven for pirates, Blackbeard and Bluebeard being the most infamous. Blackbeard's Castle, circa 1679, is a popular tour site for families.
- Other walking tours may focus on the sugar mills, pirates and buccaneers, and St. Thomas as it pertains to Danish and American history.
- Last, Coral World Ocean Park has interactive touch tanks for kids, a nature trail and, best of all, an underwater observation room at the end of a pier (think glass-bottomed boat, only stationary). It's a fun place to take your family when the children want to take a break from splashing in the ocean or hotel pool.
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