Welcome back y’all! A lot of life has happened since I made my last post, and I’m finally kind of settled down and ready to write. This post will focus on my trip with friends to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, back in January of 2023.

When I travel, I frequently go solo, partly because I really enjoy the alone time, but also partly because my close friends don’t really enjoy the rugged travel style I’ve adopted. When I was researching how to best explore Virgin Islands National Park, however, I realized that this was a trip my friends could probably get excited about. Thus Meg, who I knew from work, and Quinci, one of my close friends from Greencastle, joined me on this adventure.

Because the Virgin Islands make up just one park, we decided to expand the itinerary to include visiting Puerto Rico. I had heard lots of good things and was excited to explore the island.

Come January, we landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday evening, picked up our rental car and drove to our Airbnb. Tired from the journey, we decided just to order tacos to the apartment. It was soo good – definitely made us excited for the cuisine the rest of the trip!

Sunday morning we were up and off on a whirlwind of a day. First up was a tour of Hacienda Muñoz, a coffee farm just outside of San Juan. The coffee of course was delicious, and it was really fascinating to see and hear how the coffee was produced from start to finish. My favorite part was probably seeing the machinery used to roast and sort out coffee beans by size.

We had to cut out slightly early in order to make it to our next stop: a Don Q rum tasting and tour at Castillo Serrallés in Ponce. Fun fact: Puerto Rico is known as the rum capital of the world, with up to 70-80% of the world’s rum originating there. Brands like Bacardi and Captain Morgan are most well known, but Don Q was equally as delicious in my opinion.

Our tour guide was great. I was fascinated by the fact that Don Q ages its rum in barrels that are first used to age Kentucky bourbon. We also learned a good deal about the Jones Act, which prohibits goods from being shipped on anything other than American vessels when being shipped between two American ports. This rather obscure act heavily impacts the Puerto Rico economy, forcing the costs of goods higher – which is significant when nearly all of the island’s goods are imported and nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.

After the tour, it was time for our Mixology class. Two drinks were included, an Old Fashioned and a Piña Colada, and they were absolutely delicious. Beautiful weather, beautiful setting, and tasty drinks: spirits were high (pun intended)!

Afterwards, we took a little time to explore the gorgeous grounds, which look out over the city of Ponce. It was a good opportunity to ride out the neurological rollercoaster we had put ourselves on: first caffeine and then alcohol!

Our final stop of the day was the salt flats at Cabo Rojo on the very southwest corner of the island. In my research for the trip I had stumbled upon pictures of salt flats with beautiful light pink water, and I was fascinated. When we got there, however, the sights were a little underwhelming. Apparently the color changes frequently and is highly dependent on many factors, including tides, salinity, and algae and bacteria levels. Nonetheless, it was still neat to see the salt deposits, and the water did look slightly reddish/pinkish if you caught it in the right light. All the same, I probably wouldn’t recommend going out of your way for this one unless you know for certain that the colors are strong.

We didn’t stay for too long, as we had managed to cross the entire width of the island and had over a two hour’s drive back to San Juan. We were famished after a long day, though, and stopped for dinner at a restaurant, I think in Ponce. I got to try mofongo, which is a traditional Puerto Rican dish made from mashed fried green plantains. Mine was served with a chicken stew over top. Tasty, though very filling!

Monday we were up and off again, this time to El Yunque National Forest a little ways outside of San Juan. It’s the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest system, so I was pretty excited to experience it. We started off by climbing Yokahú Tower and got some great views.

The next stop was Baño Grande and Baño de Oro, which translates to Big Bath and Bath of Gold. These were two pools constructed by the CCC (or “Los Tres C’s”, as it was known in PR), under FDR’s New Deal. I don’t know about you, but it had never dawned on me that the CCC might have existed outside of the mainland, so that was a pretty neat discovery. The pools are no longer open to swimming, but they were still really pretty.

Next up, we stopped at La Coca Falls. So beautiful! We had the option of going off the beaten path and exploring a bit, and I’m so glad we did.

All in all I’d say El Yunque is a neat stop for a day or half-day; it does have a permitting system in place that made our lives kind of difficult, but that was partly because I didn’t book far enough in advance. There was also a fair bit of construction happening while we were there, but I’m guessing that’s probably finished by now.

Tuesday we realized that we were pretty tired from the previous few days, so we decided to sleep in and take a beach day. We ultimately decided on La Posita Del Obispo Beach near Rincón for our destination – but first, food of course! These fried cheese cubes were delicious.

The beach was gorgeous. Rock formations create a shallow pool good for swimming and also allow you to climb up and get good views. We sunbathed a little, swam a little, and explored a little.

That evening we had booked a nighttime kayaking tour near Fajardo, which is home to one of Puerto Rico’s three bioluminescent bays. Living in the waters of the bay are microorganisms called dinoflagellate, which, when disturbed, emit a blue-green light. Depending on conditions and the number of dinoflagellate, the whole bay can glisten with the light from these tiny creatures. Unfortunately, the night we went was not one of those nights, but it was still a really neat experience.

We were in tandem kayaks, and I got lucky enough to be paired with one of the guides, Noel, who pointed out interesting sights to me the whole time. We had to paddle through a mangrove forest to get to the bay, which was a slightly eery but neat experience – spotted many iguanas along the way. Once we got out to the bay, we still got to see the glow – we just had to go literally undercover! We had all packed out tarps, and one person would stir up the water to produce the glow while the other would put the tarp over their head to block out any light and watch the water sparkle and gleam. The guides also brought laser pointers and used them to point out stars and constellations in the night sky.

Overall I thought it was a really neat experience even if the water wasn’t as bright that night, and I’d recommend it. There were multiple kayaking companies to choose from; we went with Kayaking Puerto Rico and thought they were good.

I don’t have any photos of the water itself since I didn’t take my phone out on the water, but I highly recommend googling it! I do have this one of the three of us once we got back on land.

The next morning we awoke abruptly and packed up in a hurry. Our airline had bumped our flight up rather last minute, and we were cutting it close on time. We made it, but unfortunately in the rush I forgot to pack my knife in my carry-on, so it got confiscated, and I left my satellite tracker back in the Airbnb: not a good thing to lose two methods of self-defense as a young female traveler.

The flight to the Virgin Islands was pretty short and smooth, so much so that we never hit high enough altitude for the seatbelt lights to go off!

The flight was only the first leg of the voyage: we landed on St. Thomas Island because it’s the only island with an airport, but the National Park, which is what we were most interested in, is solely on the neighboring St. John Island. To get there, we took a taxi from the airport to the ferry dock and then a ferry over to Cruz Bay on Saint John. Once we docked, we took a second taxi to get to our accommodation/base camp at Cinnamon Bay Campground on the north side of the island. It was quite a lot of logistics, but we made it!

Cinnamon Bay had been on my radar for a while, but the campground was hit really hard by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and had to be shut down for a few years, so I was really excited to find out they had reopened just a little before our trip. They offer multiple types of lodging, ranging from tent camping to cottages; we booked a cottage for a little more comfort. I loved Cinnamon Bay because it had everything you could want on site without having to leave: a restaurant, a camp store, a beautiful beach, and a gear rental shop. It was also a pretty quick drive from Cruz Bay and a good central point on the island. It definitely is a little more primitive than what you would get from a typical hotel or Airbnb: there’s no AC on the property and no bathrooms in any of the units, only in shared bathhouses. The showers were cold water only in the bathhouse closest to us, but at the very end of our trip we heard of another bathhouse having hot water, so your mileage may vary. The beds in our cottage were also not super comfortable and squeaked quite a bit, so it might not be a bad idea to bring an extra sleeping pad or cushion if you have one. For the cost savings, these sacrifices were more than worth it to me, but then again, I’m used to tent camping!

That evening, we had some substantial conflict between us. While it was basically resolved by morning, it was a good reminder of a couple things: a) managing preferences and expectations is hard and requires a ton of communication, especially when they differ between group members, and b) even when you’re on vacation with friends you love, it’s still good to have alone time and give each other some space and grace, particularly when you’re all tired and hungry.

On that latter note, we decided to spend Thursday individually doing what we wanted, so I went exploring. I spent a little time on Cinnamon Bay Beach first, which was absolutely beautiful. The building in this photo was the oldest building on the island – dating back to the 1680s – when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017 and effectively destroyed it. It’s unfortunate, but the bright side is it makes for a really cool photo op.

Next I did a little loop hike around some nearby plantation ruins and found a letterbox…

…then hiked up to America Hill, where there’s more ruins – this time of an old estate house. The views were just gorgeous.

I spent a while up there soaking in the views and attempting to chip away at Fellowship of the Ring for the nth time (and more than two years later, I’m working on the nth + 1 attempt…. I’ll get there eventually!).

That evening Meg and I attended a talk on coral back at the campground, which was super interesting. I decided to splurge on dinner from the restaurant and got a blackened Mahi Mahi sandwich with a slice of key lime pie and a Painkiller, the island’s unofficial cocktail. Everything was SO good.

Friday Quinci and I caught a taxi into Cruz Bay and explored a couple shops there. My favorite was the St. John Spice Company, which smelled heavenly and had so many fun little goodies!

I eventually split off from Q to do a short little hike and find some letterboxes, plus get my picture with the National Park sign. The scenery was beautiful, though I can’t say the same for the location of the park sign…

And of course, Q and I had to get ice cream once we reunited!

After we taxied back to Cinnamon, I decided to head for the gear shop. The talk on coral from the night before had really piqued my interest, and I decided I wanted to try my hand at snorkeling, something I’d never done before outside of messing around in the pool as a kid. Unfortunately, my first attempt didn’t go super well: I hadn’t rented a life jacket, which made staying afloat in the waves as a below-average swimmer quite difficult, and I was pretty sure water was leaking into my snorkel. I hung up the gear for the night and decided to try again the next day.

Saturday we had decided to get out and explore a bit, so we reserved a taxi out to the southeast corner of the island, where we planned to hike the Ram Head Trail. It was about three miles round-trip and had some gorgeous views, along with a couple points of interest.

Unfortunately a cactus picked a battle with Q on the way up to the peak, but Meg and I were able to patch her up! Between that experience and their rather *ahem* phallic shape, the cacti were definitely not Quinci’s favorite flora on the trip.

On our way back to the trailhead, we crossed the peninsula to see Drunk Bay, which was also pretty, though a little more turbulent.

Though we had scheduled a taxi back to Cinnamon and made it back to the trailhead well before the arranged pickup time, our driver was nowhere in sight. We waited quite a while, knowing people here tend to operate on island time, before I called the company. Our driver had completely forgotten about us! She apologized profusely and ran out the door, but we still had to wait for her to cross the entire island. Thankfully we had some shade, I had brought extra snacks, and we made friends with another tourist, so the time didn’t pass too slowly. Meg enjoyed all the rental Jeeps in the parking lot – it’s definitely the vehicle of choice in VI!

We finally made it back to Cinnamon, and I decided to give snorkeling another go, this time with a life jacket. A staff person confirmed my snorkel was indeed leaking and replaced it, so I was set! And WOW, what an experience it was! I don’t have any pictures, but I saw so many colorful fish and beautiful coral formations. I’m so glad I tried it a second time – definitely a highlight of the trip.

And to top it all off, we got a gorgeous sunset that night! We were just basking in the glow.

For our last night in the Virgin Islands, we got dinner at the campground restaurant. It wasn’t quite as good as the Mahi Mahi, but it was still pretty tasty.

Sunday morning, Q and Meg decided to take the first ferry back over to Saint Thomas, but I stayed back: I had heard about sea turtles at the next beach over and wanted to see if I might be able to swim with them. Unfortunately I didn’t have any luck with the turtles, but I did get to see a rainbow! It was a nice little parting moment.

Though we were back at the airport, it wasn’t time for us to fly back to the mainland just yet. The way logistics and prices worked out meant that we were flying back to PR and had one more whole day there to explore before going home. As a result, Sunday was basically a rewind of the day we arrived in the Virgin Islands – we even went back to the same Airbnb in Puerto Rico!

Monday was our day to explore San Juan, particularly the historic sector. We started the day off by going to brunch at this gorgeous cafe called Vera.

Next we Ubered to the San Juan National Historic Site, which is a whole campus of rich history dating back over 500 years. The main attractions are the forts of El Morro, Castillo San Cristóbal, and El Cañuelo, the first of which was built by the Spaniards in the 16th century. The forts withstood attacks from a Dutch privateer, the British Navy and the American Navy before they came under U.S. control with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898. The site then became known as Fort Brooke and even saw a little bit of action during the world wars until it was turned over to the National Park Service in 1949.

On top of having so many layers of history, the location is really stunning, and the architecture in some parts is quite lovely too.

After touring the fort, we walked around the historic district of San Juan and popped in and out of some shops. So many of the buildings were so brightly colored and beautifully designed.

We grabbed gelato from this super boujee place…

…then decided on dinner at the place where piña coladas were allegedly invented. Naturally, we had to test the quality for ourselves. Approved!

We called it a night and Ubered back pretty early because Quinci and Meg were flying out early the next morning. I bid goodbye to them on Tuesday morning and sent my checked bag with Q (ah, the good ol’ days of two bags fly free on Southwest) so that I could more easily explore the city. We had hit a lot of the highlights the day before, but there were still a few things I wanted to see, like the old cemetery near the fort. I had also come across a few letterboxes I wanted to look for. It was a last day well spent soaking up the sun before heading back to the cold grey Midwest.

Before long, my flight was beckoning me too, so I Ubered to the airport and started the journey home. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for following along! I’ll include a couple of logistical details below for anyone looking for advice in traveling to PR/VI.

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If you’re planning a trip to either or both of these locations, know that while you’re technically still in the U.S., it’s almost better in some ways to have the mindset of traveling abroad. Here are some of the biggest differences from the mainland:

• Puerto Ricans as a whole speak Spanish more than they do English; some hardly speak English at all. This extends to writing too – basically all of the road signs we saw were in Spanish. The museums we went to had both English and Spanish tours available, which was great. If you’re sticking only to a resort or the more touristy areas of PR, then you might not encounter much Spanish, but otherwise you’ll probably want to brush up on the basics. People from the Virgin Islands speak primarily English, but they do tend to have kind of a heavy accent.
• Time in these places is a bit more lax. Definitely still be on time to museum tours and flights, but don’t be surprised if natives run late.
• In the Virgin Islands, people drive on the left hand side of the road. Unlike most places that drive on the left, however, they use cars where the driver seat is on the left hand side of the car. For these reasons, plus the narrow, winding island roads, we decided not to rent a car in VI and just use taxis instead.
• Do your best before the trip to make sure you’ll have cell phone service. I have Verizon and thought I would be fine based on my research, but I ended up having issues. I was able to get them resolved mid-trip, but it would have been really stressful had Quinci and Meg not been with me.
• You may get kind of heckled like you would expect to in a second or third world country; when we deboarded the ferry in Saint John, there were several people waiting for the passengers, competing to show them around or help them navigate in exchange for money.
• When flying out of the airport on Saint Thomas, you will have to go through U.S. customs regardless of whether you entered another country. This one caught me by surprise – thankfully we still had plenty of time to catch our flight.

I hope this helps in your planning! Thanks again for reading!