Roughing It on St. John

Karate Kid?

The term “roughing it” can have many different meanings to many different people. Some could say a four star hotel is roughing it and a three star hotel is close to cave living. Others could say digging your toilet and catching your own food would be roughing it and a hotel room is close to cave living.

Conch Life

When travelling as a couple it’s sometimes difficult to find a place that suits both of our tastes especially when it comes to roughing it. I’m finding that some places I’ve loved going to in the past no longer fit in with our travel style. Both of us love nature and the outdoors but we both don’t have the same love of roughing it. Pamela’s as tough as they come but her idea of a good time, nor mine for that matter, does not include some of the things we experienced on the Caribbean island of St. John.

Little Maho and Francis Bay

Twilight on St. John

After our cruise we flew to the island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands for five days of island life. From St. Thomas airport we caught a rather expensive cab then a ferry over to St. John, the smallest and least developed of the US Virgin Islands. The  Virgin Islands National Park comprises two thirds of the 20 square mile island so development is very restricted which leads to beautiful virgin beaches, mountainous trails, abundant wildlife and high price tags for hotel rooms. The National Park and high priced hotel rooms on the island have opened up a market for camp style accommodations at the beautiful Cinnamon and Maho Bays.

Little Maho Bay

Big Maho Bay

We chose to stay at the Maho Bay Camp while on St. John, $140 USD per night plus tax. I (DW) have stayed at the camp a couple times before and always had a good time. When booking a room at the camp you’re actually booking a wood framed, canvas tent cottage, with screen or synthetic windows which open up to a wood deck with ocean views.

The living room of our cottage

Cooking up some soup on the camping gas stove

The construction style of the tent cottage allows for a oneness with nature that you normally don’t find in a typical hotel room. Lying in bed you can drift off to sleep to the sounds of the lapping ocean waves or conversing tree frogs.  Also lying in bed you’ll have the chance to kill or escort out cockroaches, millipedes, large flying insects, crabs, rats, lizards, iguanas and anything else that can crawl, walk, fly or scamper around the jungle. Five shared bathhouses throughout the camp allow you access to shared toilets and cold showers. Flashlights are a must though as there are no lights on the elevated walkways throughout the camp. The lack of lights at night makes for great stargazing opportunities from your deck.

One of our many lizard friends in our cottage

Escorting a millipede out of our room

The essentials when coming to St. John

The Maho Bay Camps are located towards the end of the island in a great location allowing for easy access to beautiful beaches of Big Maho Bay, Francis Bay and Little Maho Bay. A close proximity of hiking trails allows for easy access to Cinnamon Bay, Leinster Bay, Salt Pond and even Reef Bay via the Reef Bay Trail. While on the island we hiked over the Leinster Bay and snorkeled around the crystal blue waters of Waterlemon Cay. The snorkeling around St. John is great, on a sunny day the visibility in the light blue water is great, your chances of spotting rays or turtles are very high.

An iguana above our tent cottage

Enjoying Francis Bay at sunset

The Maho Bay Camp is also well known for its art programs ranging from ceramics, batik and a recycled glass program allowing guests to watch professional glass artists practice their trade from 6:30pm to 9:30pm most evenings. During the day guests can pay to join ceramics, batik or glass blowing glasses with each class creating something unique for you to take home. We felt the prices for the art programs were a bit too steep so we settled on watching the glass artists in the evening. The pieces you watch being created in the evening are then for sale in the Art Gallery the next day. This allows you to see a piece from start to finish and then take the piece home with you.

Watching the sun go down on St. John

Sunset at Little Maho Bay

If the thought of all the critters mentioned above in your room turns you off then Maho Bay Camps is probably not the place for you. Unfortunately in our case it proved not to be the place for Pamela either. While staying at the camp Pamela developed many-many-many bites over her back and arms consistent with bed bugs. Although the camp staff insisted the bites were from sand flies they were nice enough to change the mattress out, give us new sheets, and finally let us leave a night early due to the increasing number of bites on Pamela.  In our four nights at the camp we also dealt with rat poop on our bed, cockroaches crawling over us, Pamela being stung by a jellyfish (just bad luck) and dodging flying poop and pee from the large green iguanas living in the tree above our deck.

One of our iguana friends

On the trail to big Maho Bay
Is this Pamela or the sherpa?

St. John is a beautiful island and I would recommend travelling there to anyone; although far from Australia I hope to see the island again myself. Needless to say this is the last time we’ll be roughing it at Maho Bay Camps as it’s just not the place for us any more.

Showing Off

A death apple tree on the walk to Waterlemon Cay from Maho 

All our pics from St. John can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/StJohnUSVirginIslands?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave