Travel in the British Virgin Islands: a territory reached by boat

How visitors reach the islands by air

The territory has three airports:

There are no direct flights from Canada, Europe or South America. Travellers connect through another Caribbean airport, such as San Juan in Puerto Rico, St Thomas, Antigua or St Maarten, and long-distance flights to the area land at Cyril E. King Airport on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. The Tourist Board suggests that travellers from the United Kingdom route through Antigua. American Airlines began direct flights from Miami to Beef Island on 1 June 2023, and the budget address of November 2025 said the route was to rise to five flights a day from December 2025.

The main airport is due to grow. In 2025 the Cabinet approved a 7,000-foot runway extension at Terrance B. Lettsome to take larger aircraft and allow direct flights from further away, with a master plan and an environmental impact assessment still to come. In January 2010 the territory's aviation regulator restricted the Virgin Gorda airport to a short list of airlines and demanded it be brought up to international safety standards; it reopened in December 2010. Helicopters reach islands with no runway, and Caribbean Buzz Helicopters runs transfers between Beef Island and St Thomas.

Why most arrivals come by sea

The sea route carries the larger share of visitors. Cruise ships dock at Road Town, and in 2023 cruise passengers numbered 719,519 out of 994,896 visitor arrivals, according to the territorial government's macroeconomic review cited by the United Nations. Cruise arrivals in the first three quarters of 2025 rose 7.2% to 580,575. The visitors come mainly from the United States: in 2015, when 922,372 people visited, 393,018 of them stayed overnight and the rest were cruise passengers.

Ferries link the territory with its American neighbour. Boats run from Charlotte Amalie and Red Hook on St Thomas, and from St John, to Road Town or West End on Tortola, with service to Virgin Gorda on some days. They operate only in daylight, so a flight arriving late at St Thomas can mean a night there before the crossing. Day-trippers, who come in for the day and leave again, rose from 11,999 in the first three quarters of 2024 to 18,539 in the same period of 2025.

Every arrival passes through a port of entry. Those listed by the Tourist Board are Road Town and West End on Tortola, Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke and St Thomas Bay on Virgin Gorda, with Gun Creek on Virgin Gorda due to reopen. A passport is required to enter and leave by air or sea, and some nationalities also need a visa. Since 1 January 2025 the paper immigration and customs form has been replaced by an online form that can be filled in up to 72 hours before arrival.

Yachts have their own procedure. Every vessel entering the territory must clear in with Customs and Immigration as soon as it arrives, carrying valid passports for all crew and the boat's registration papers. A charter boat that leaves for the US Virgin Islands and returns has to clear with BVI Customs and Immigration, clear in at Cruz Bay or Charlotte Amalie, and clear back in at a BVI port of entry, and crew who are neither American nor Canadian may need an American visa to enter US waters other than on a commercial carrier.

How people move between the islands

Water is the main road. A regular ferry service links Tortola with some of the other islands, Virgin Gorda among them, as well as with the US Virgin Islands, and the Road Town ferry terminal sits at the north-west end of the town. Road Town and West End terminals are to be upgraded in 2026, with larger berths for bigger vessels. Small aircraft and charter flights serve Virgin Gorda and Anegada, and the Tourist Board advises that a traveller heading for Anegada, Peter Island or Jost Van Dyke after about 4 p.m. may need to spend a night on Tortola first.

On land, traffic drives on the left, as in the United Kingdom and the US Virgin Islands, although most cars are left-hand drive because they are imported from the United States. The roads are often steep, narrow and winding, and ruts, mudslides and rockfall can be a problem after rain. A road from West End to East End of Tortola and the bridge to Beef Island were built after 1958; the United Nations put the network at more than 200 kilometres of surfaced road in 2026. Taxis operate on Tortola. On Tortola the buses are known as safaris, full-sized passenger vans or open-air pickup trucks with bench seats and a canvas roof, used between the airport, Road Town and the ends of the island.

What sailors find in the channels and sounds

Charter sailing boats are a common way to reach the less accessible islands. Road Town is a centre for bareboating, the hire of a yacht without a professional crew, and charter companies operate from its marinas. The islands sit close together around the Sir Francis Drake Channel, and their sheltered waters and generally steady winds suit sailing; most of the territory's tourism income comes from yacht chartering.

The anchorages are spread through the group. On Tortola the Tourist Board names Cane Garden Bay, Soper's Hole and Trellis Bay as starting points. North Sound at the north-east end of Virgin Gorda has more than 3,000 acres of protected water behind a ring of four islands and reefs, with the Bitter End Yacht Club at its eastern anchorage. Cam Bay on Great Camanoe is a calm anchorage with a reef and lagoon for snorkelling.

Below the surface lies the wreck of the RMS Rhone, in about 20 to 80 feet of water in Lee Bay off Salt Island inside a national marine park. The same park takes in Blonde Rock, the canyons of Painted Walls and the coral tunnels of Rhone Reef. The Tobago Cays in the north-west drop to 50 metres, and Diamond Cay, beside Jost Van Dyke, and Sandy Cay are national parks too. Sandy Cay has a network of trails laid out when Laurance Rockefeller owned it.

The racing year centres on the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival, established in 1972, whose 51st edition ran from 23 to 29 March 2026. The culture article lists the yacht clubs' other races through the year.

What Virgin Gorda's shore and parks hold

The Baths National Park covers the beaches and shoreline at the south-western tip of Virgin Gorda, a coast of granite boulders up to 40 feet across, which lean together into grottoes and rock pools open to the sea. From the car park at the top of The Baths a walk of about 15 minutes through dry scrub and boulders leads to Devil's Bay, a horseshoe-shaped beach, and Spring Bay lies east of The Baths in the area called The Crawl, reached by a palm-lined avenue.

The rest of the island rewards a walk. The ruins of the Copper Mine stand on the cliffs of the south-east, the copper having been worked until the mine closed in 1867. Gorda Peak National Park, at the summit, protects dry forest donated by Laurance Rockefeller in 1974. Little Fort, between Spanish Town and Big Trunk Bay, holds a small fortification and a munitions store, but access is hard: hikers enter from the shore and climb a difficult trail through dense vegetation.

What Tortola offers beyond Road Town

Tortola is the usual starting point. Its north coast holds the beaches: Smuggler's Cove, Long Bay, Cane Garden Bay, Brewer's Bay, Josiah's Bay and Lambert Beach. Cane Garden Bay is also surfed, and game fishing is done on the North and South Drops. Inland lies Sage Mountain National Park, the territory's first, whose land was bought from farmers with a donation from Laurance Rockefeller and given to the government.

The history is close to the road. The Tourist Board lists the 1780 Lower Estate Sugar Works Museum, Fort Burt, the Mount Healthy windmill, Callwood's Rum Distillery, the J.R. O'Neal Botanic Gardens in Road Town, the Old Government House Museum and the Virgin Islands Folk Museum. The prison on Main Street in Road Town dates from 1774.

Road Town itself is a harbour town on the horseshoe-shaped Road Harbour, with a population given as about 15,000 in 2018 and 12,603 in the territory's record for 2012. Its newest quarter, Wickham's Cay, is a 28-hectare development on land reclaimed from the sea with a marina, and it holds the yacht charter bases and many of the government and commercial buildings. Cruise ships tie up in the harbour, and the J.R. O'Neal Botanic Gardens occupy the site of a century-old agricultural experiment station in the middle of the town. On the north shore, the Mount Healthy windmill is the surviving part of an eighteenth-century sugar plantation of 250 acres, with the ruins of its animal-powered mill round, boiling house, distillery and hospital across the road.

How Anegada and Jost Van Dyke differ

Anegada is the island apart. It is flat coral and limestone, rising 28 feet at its highest, surrounded by reefs, underwater caves and old wrecks that draw snorkellers and divers. Its beaches include Cow Wreck Beach, Flash of Beauty, Bones Bight and Windlass Bight, and The Settlement is its main township. The flamingos released in 1991 live mainly around Flamingo Pond; the National Parks Trust says they are best seen from the slightly raised bridge at Nutmeg Point, with binoculars, and asks visitors not to cross the ponds to get closer. The Anegada Lobster Festival is held in November.

Jost Van Dyke, named after the Dutch privateer Joost van Dyk, has the ruins of early sugar mills, old footpaths and a natural pool on its north-east shore known as the Bubbly Pool. Its bars are well known among sailors, and Great Harbour is the island's port of entry.

When to go and what the year brings

The weather changes less than the calendar does. Temperatures in Road Town run from typical maxima of about 29 °C in winter to about 32 °C in summer. The hurricane season runs from June to November, and the wettest months on average are September to November; February and March are the driest.

A few practical facts hold year round. The currency is the US dollar, the territory keeps Atlantic Standard Time with no summer time, the electricity supply is 110 volts with North American plugs, and the telephone code is +1 284. Businesses may not sell liquor on Good Friday until 6 p.m. The sea carries a real risk: drownings made up 20% of deaths recorded in the territory in 2012, all of them visitors, according to Wikipedia's account. The geography article explains why the islands sit so close together.