Jost Van Dyke

Jost Van Dyke punches well above its size. The island has a permanent population of less than 300 people and a reputation for having more bars per square mile than anywhere in the BVI. White Bay and the Soggy Dollar are the famous stops, and they earn it, but the beach has options beyond the crowd. Great Harbour is where Foxy's has been holding court for over fifty years. Little Harbour is quieter, more local, and easy to underestimate. Sandy Spit, a tiny uninhabited sandbar just offshore, is the kind of place people talk about for years.

Jost Van Dyke is a small island that carries an outsized reputation, and most of it is deserved. With fewer than 300 permanent residents and no stoplight on the island, it manages to deliver some of the best beach bars, anchorages, and unhurried afternoons in the entire Caribbean. The trick is knowing where to go and, just as importantly, where to sleep.

White Bay and the Soggy Dollar

White Bay on the south shore is the stop everyone makes and for good reason. The beach is genuinely one of the most beautiful in the world, a long curve of white sand backed by low hills with clear turquoise water in front of it. The Soggy Dollar Bar sits at the western end, where the Painkiller was born, the rum, pineapple, and coconut drink that becomes synonymous with the BVI. You swim ashore because there is no dock, your dollars come out wet, and that is the whole idea.

The beach has other good options too, including Hendo's, Ivan's Stress Free Bar, Gertrude's, and a few others spread along the sand. Go, have the drink, spend the afternoon. Just know that White Bay is getting busier every season and it is not a good overnight anchorage, especially in winter when ground swells push in and make it rolly and uncomfortable.

Great Harbour and Little Harbour

For overnight stops, Great Harbour and Little Harbour are the right calls. Great Harbour is the main settlement and port of entry, home to Foxy's, which has been a BVI institution for more than fifty years. Foxy Callwood himself is still there most days, liable to materialize from a hammock and play you a song. The harbor is well protected and has mooring balls and anchoring room.

Little Harbour, tucked to the east, is the one people skip and shouldn't. Sidney's Peace and Love is there, still run by Sidney's family, still serving lobster with an honor bar where you write down what you drink. Harris' Place is right alongside it. The Bubbly Pool, a short walk from Foxy's Taboo at Diamond Cay on the eastern end of the island, is a natural salt water pool in the rocks where waves surge in at high tide. Worth the trip.

Sandy Spit

Sandy Spit sits just offshore to the southeast of JVD, a small uninhabited sandbar with a few palm trees and nothing else. It looks engineered for a postcard, and island lore says more than one Corona commercial was shot here. Nobody can confirm it, but stand on the sand for five minutes and you stop caring whether it is true. You anchor nearby, swim in, and spend an hour doing nothing. It is a National Park. There are no facilities and no reason to stay long. That is exactly the point.

Staying on Jost

Jost is small, but the trade-off is that you can do it as a stay rather than just a stop. A few days or a week on the island, sleeping ashore, getting to know one of the harbours and the people who run the bars, is a meaningfully different experience of the BVI than passing through on a charter. Hotels, cottages, and rentals are scattered across White Bay, Great Harbour, and the eastern end of the island. We will go deeper on staying on Jost in future pieces.