U.S. Virgin Islands

“Island time” governs daily expectations in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and punctuality tends to be more flexible than on the mainland. The islands’ warm, tropical beauty is exactly why they are known as “America’s Paradise.”

African heritage brought through slavery, followed by nearly 250 years of Danish colonial rule before the United States purchased the islands in 1917, gave the territory a genuinely layered history still visible in local buildings, food, and tradition. Moko Jumbie dancers, performing on tall stilts, carry that heritage directly, a tradition rooted in West African spiritual practice.

Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the most populous island of St. Thomas, preserves Danish colonial stone buildings around its harbor, and Virgin Islands National Park on St. John protects more than 60 percent of that island’s land.