Some links on our site may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
St. Thomas is the Virgin Islands most people picture: cruise ships stacked in Charlotte Amalie harbor, duty-free jewelry stores, and beach clubs a short taxi ride from the pier. St. John, twenty minutes away by ferry, is the opposite — two-thirds of the island is Virgin Islands National Park, and Cruz Bay still feels like a town instead of a resort strip. Most trips do better picking one as a base and treating the other as a day out, and which way you lean depends on whether you came to shop and swim or to hike and snorkel.
I’ve spent enough days island-hopping the USVI to have a strong opinion on this one. St. Thomas is where I go when I want a proper harbor view with my coffee and don’t mind sharing the sidewalk with a few thousand cruise passengers. St. John is where I go to remember why I like boats in the first place. Quieter roads, steeper hills, and beaches that still look like beaches instead of resort frontage.
Is St. Thomas or St. John better?
Neither island is better outright. They’re built for different kinds of days. St. Thomas wins on convenience: direct cruise dockage, the widest range of restaurants and rental cars, and an airport with far more flights than St. John will ever get. St. John wins on scenery and quiet, at the cost of everything taking a little longer to reach.
The table below is the short version. The rest of this guide fills in the details.
| Category | St. Thomas | St. John |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Cruise days, shopping, nightlife | Hiking, snorkeling, quiet beaches |
| Land inside the national park | None | About two-thirds of the island |
| Airport | Cyril E. King (STT), direct flights | None — reached by boat only |
| Ferry from Red Hook | — | About 20 minutes to Cruz Bay |
| Lodging style | Resorts, condos, chain hotels | Villas, small inns, guesthouses |
| Cruise ships dock here | Yes, Charlotte Amalie & Crown Bay | No |
Things to Do in St. Thomas
Charlotte Amalie is the reason a lot of people fly into St. Thomas at all. The duty-free shops along Main Street sell jewelry, liquor, and watches at prices that draw a line of cruise passengers every morning a ship is in port, and Fort Christian still stands watch over the harbor from the 17th century.
Magens Bay, on the island’s north side, is the beach everyone means when they say “St. Thomas beach.” It’s calm, roughly a mile long, and an easy taxi from the pier. Coki Beach and the adjoining Coral World aquarium sit a few minutes further east and are the easier stop if you want snorkeling without a boat.
The rest of the island rewards a rental car or a taxi tour more than a cruise-day dash: the overlook at Drake’s Seat, the French-settled fishing village of Frenchtown for lunch, and Crown Bay for a second, quieter cruise dock. None of it takes more than an afternoon, which is the appeal. St. Thomas is built to be seen in the hours between “all aboard” calls.
Things to Do in St. John
Virgin Islands National Park covers two-thirds of St. John, by the park service’s own count, and it shows the moment you step off the ferry in Cruz Bay. The town itself is small, just a few blocks of restaurants and shops around the harbor, and most of what people come for is a short drive up North Shore Road: Trunk Bay, Hawksnest, and Honeymoon Beach, each with its own personality and none of them as crowded as Magens Bay gets.
Inland, the Reef Bay Trail drops through old sugar-plantation ruins to a beach most day-trippers never reach, and the roads up toward Bordeaux Mountain climb steep enough that a lot of visitors regret not renting a Jeep. Coral Bay, on the island’s quieter east end, is the version of St. John from before any of this was a national park. A handful of bars, a harbor full of live-aboard sailboats, and not much else.
St. John doesn’t have St. Thomas’s shopping or its restaurant count, and it isn’t trying to. What it has is more coastline that still looks the way the whole territory did before the cruise ships found it.
How to Get from St. Thomas to St. John
There’s no bridge and no direct flight. Every trip between the two islands goes by boat, and which boat you take depends on whether you’re bringing a car.
Red Hook to Cruz Bay Ferry
Passenger ferries run out of the Red Hook terminal on St. Thomas’s east end, about 20 minutes from Cruz Bay. The ferry operator’s own fare page lists the one-way adult fare at $8.15 for non-residents, with children ages 2 to 11 at $1. There’s also a slower passenger ferry from Charlotte Amalie itself, useful if you’re already downtown and don’t want to backtrack to Red Hook.
Parking at Red Hook fills up fast on cruise days, and the lot isn’t free, so budget extra time if you’re driving out from a West End hotel.
Car Barge to St. John
If you want your own rental car on St. John rather than relying on taxis, the car barge from Red Hook to Enighed Pond near Cruz Bay takes it, and you, along for the ride. Both car-barge operators price a standard car or small SUV at $65 one way or $80 round trip on their own rate pages, with passengers riding free alongside the vehicle. Plan on the crossing running a bit longer than the passenger ferry, closer to half an hour.
Most people staying only a night or two on St. John skip the barge and rent a Jeep once they’re already there. St. John’s roads are steep enough that a low rental sedan is the wrong car for the island anyway.
Where to Stay in St. Thomas
Most St. Thomas lodging clusters around three areas: the resorts and condos along the north-shore beaches near Magens Bay, the cruise-adjacent hotels close to Charlotte Amalie, and the quieter East End near Red Hook, which puts you closest to the St. John ferry. Chain resorts and all-inclusive-style properties dominate here more than anywhere else in the territory.
East End is the better call if a St. John day trip is already on the itinerary. It shrinks the taxi ride to Red Hook down to a few minutes instead of a long crawl across the island. Staying downtown near Charlotte Amalie instead puts the shops and Fort Christian in walking distance, at the cost of a longer trip out to Red Hook on ferry mornings.
Where to Stay in St. John
St. John doesn’t have a single chain hotel or a cruise pier, and that’s the point for a lot of people who choose it. Lodging runs to small inns and eco-resorts near Cruz Bay, plus a scattered set of hillside villas with the kind of harbor views St. Thomas charges resort prices for.
Staying on St. John instead of day-tripping in means the North Shore beaches empty out by late afternoon, once the ferry crowd heads back to St. Thomas for dinner. It also means most dinners happen in Cruz Bay itself, which has a real restaurant scene for a town this small, just a shorter one than Charlotte Amalie’s.
St John Day Trip From St Thomas
A day trip works fine if St. John is only getting one day of your itinerary. Catch an early ferry from Red Hook, pick up a taxi or open-air safari bus at the Cruz Bay dock, hit two North Shore beaches, and be back on a later boat before dark. Most visitors manage it without feeling rushed.
Staying overnight makes more sense if beaches and hiking are the actual goal of the trip, not St. Thomas’s shopping and nightlife. It also means not being tied to the last ferry, which matters more than it sounds like it should after a long beach day.
The math is simple. A day trip costs a ferry ticket and whatever you spend on the island. Staying over costs a room, on an island with fewer of them than St. Thomas has, which tends to push St. John lodging toward the pricier end of the territory.
Families and larger groups tend to do better staying over, since splitting a villa several ways closes most of the price gap with a St. Thomas hotel. Solo travelers and couples who already have a St. Thomas hotel booked usually come out ahead just day-tripping in.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
St. John FAQ
Do you need a passport to visit St. John?
No. The federal government’s own list of territories confirms that St. John and the rest of the US Virgin Islands don’t require a passport for US citizens, the same as Puerto Rico or Guam.
How long is the ferry ride from St. Thomas to St. John?
About 20 minutes from Red Hook to Cruz Bay on the passenger ferry. The car barge from Red Hook to Enighed Pond runs a bit longer, closer to half an hour.
Can you take a car to St. John from St. Thomas?
Yes, by car barge from Red Hook to Enighed Pond near Cruz Bay. A standard car or small SUV runs $65 one way or $80 round trip, and passengers ride along for free.
Is St. John more expensive to visit than St. Thomas?
St. John doesn’t have St. Thomas’s range of budget hotels, so overnight lodging tends to cost more. Day-tripping in on the ferry keeps the cost close to what a St. Thomas day already runs.
Planning the rest of the trip? Our cruise packing list covers what to bring for island-hopping days like this one, and our beach vacation packing list is the better start if St. John’s beaches are the whole point of the trip.
Published October 4, 2026.
Photo credits: (1) featured, Charlotte Amalie harbor in St. Thomas with… — Captain-tucker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; (2) A commercial building along Main Street in… — P. Hughes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; (3) Coral Bay on the quieter east end of St.… — en:User:Bonus Onus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; (4) The Red Hook ferry terminal on St. Thomas… — Gruepig, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; (5) The Lind Point Trail through the hills of… — Scott Long, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.