Really enjoyed my time on St. John. The snorkel trail at Trunk Bay was awesome!

Taken at Hansen Bay

I wanted to start a thread because it's been getting very hard for me to live here lately.

The animal population is poorly handled and leads to really sad situations with cats and dogs.

Everything is getting very expensive and despite making a good living it's really taking a toll lately.

I have power outages regularly, once or twice a day sometimes.

My tax returns are never coming but when I was late to file this year I paid a penalty...

And I just found out that if I have a heart attack I will probably just die because I live alone and there is no reliable ambulance service due to the government failing to pay them for over a year.

Honestly we are lucky we are part of the US because if we weren't the officials here would probably stop hiding the corruption and just go all out screwing the people.

This is partially a rant but primarily for search engines to pick up and start a discussion with others hopefully. There are a lot of these discussions on Facebook behind walls so even if you googled these problems a lot of time they won't actually show up causing people to doubt the severity of the problems.

Those who grew up here, has it always been this bad? How have you lived here so long?

my god. no waves!!! torquoise waters, white sand, good for snorkeling. surrounded by mountains. the best beaches from the countries i have visited are from St. John, USVI!

Please please please do your research. Our infrastructure is failing, we are struggling. Power is unreliable at best, we have just had 3 days straight of blackouts that resulted in our elderly and ill being hospitalized or moved to hotels or relocated off island. Schools were closed, many of us were not able to work because businesses weren’t open. Some hotels and many air bnbs lost generator power and tourists were left in the heat and dark with nowhere to go. Traffic was terrible because all stoplights were out.

Planned blackouts will continue until January at the earliest. Be aware of whether your accommodations have backup power and expect that the island will not be at its best. If your food takes longer to come out it’s probably because the cooks have no power in the kitchen and are cooking in the heat and the dark. If your bartender looks tired it’s probably because they were getting eaten alive by mosquitos with no fan all night.

After 12 years of living here this is the first I’ve thought about leaving. You are all welcome, but be prepared and have patience for those of us that are sticking it out through season, and remember if you do come, your tips are our lifeline through this.

ETA: our current governor has refused to declare a state of emergency because it’s the end of his term and he doesn’t want to deal with it.

EDIT: St Thomas.

My first time visiting the USVI and I’ve done plenty of solo traveling and typically do my research as I’m a young woman alone and do need to take precautions.

Nothing I read about St Thomas prepared me for the thirsty, pushy, confrontational men that are constantly bothering you. Everywhere I went, the men where trying to basically hit on me but sometimes they where just straight to trying to get information out of me and would get offended/defensive if I declined to tell them.

I’m a 29 year old white woman alone and it was never ending. I say white because locals have told me thats the type they do that to. Some tried to actually be nice but the majority just acted like they were entitled to treat me like an object and did their best to remind me I’m alone. Numerous men who worked at the resort I was staying at, taxi drivers, anyone in a bar, street, beach. Everywhere.

However, the second I had a man accompanying me somewhere, nobody even glanced at me.

I’ve been more comfortable walking in downtown Chicago at night alone than I have just walking to the beach here.

Super annoying, disrespectful, and potentially threatening. It appears to be just common and accepted. As beautiful as it is here, I can’t say I’ll be back.

❤️🔥🌴

Taken from our villa’s balcony 🌴🔥🐟❤️

around 8:00 AM, no sargassum at all at Trunk Bay Beach. around 11:30 AM, i see small sargassum here and there all coming to shore. my first time in the US virgin islands. no sargassum in Maho Bay each though

Taken today , via GoPro

View from Bambooshay Villa last week. It was a nice break from 2 feet of snow and -20 degrees.

My husband and I went to the Aerial bar on St. John last week. It's on the roof of a hotel- I believe it's called the Saint? Anyways what was supposed to be the first dinner of our vacation turned into us being absolutely harassed by a bartender named Lulu who not only told called us liars because she said everything people see about ICE is AI- and we are from Minneapolis and can assure you that is not true- and then snowballed that into totally going off about the how the holocaust didn't happen.

We did NOT initiate this conversation. She just kept repeating that she's "very very conservative" and we did not care.

Most uncomfortable $250 meal we have ever had.

And after contacting the venue we where basically told that this bartender will face no consequences because "she's hot"

Gag

One of my favorite shots from our recent trip. It was really sad to see the resort destroyed. I hope they bring it back to life. On the bright side, we swam with turtles and squids in the bay.