St. John is absolutely beautiful! Gorgeous white sand beaches and turquoise blue waters; All on an island that is a U.S. territory, making traveling there easy. Sounds too good to be true? That’s because it is. All of this comes at a steep price tag, more than most Caribbean islands. So how do you make your St. John vacation happen? You’ll have to budget for it and spend wisely. Continue reading for a full breakdown of our St. John vacation cost and tips for saving money.
Is St. John Expensive?
Yes, St. John is expensive. There is no way to get around that. Our 4 day St. John vacation cost for two people was $3920 USD. This equates to about $980/day for two people, which is the MOST expensive per day vacation we have ever taken. It was a great vacation but it is on the splurge side of things and there isn’t a way to get this down to a budget level vacation. Let’s break it down below.
St. John Travel Budget
Here is the basic breakdown with details below:
- Accommodations – $1370
- Transportation – $1550
- Food – $660
- Activities – $340
Travel Budget Tip: Never let the price of a full vacation intimidate you. Keep in mind that we paid for all of this over the course of months, without paying any interest on credit card charges. We paid for the flights, then the accommodations, then the pre-bookable activities. All of this was spread out over the course of 4-ish months. Then the food was charged to our credit cards on vacation and paid off when we returned. Meaning we paid about $1000/month, not $4000 all at once.
Accommodations – $300/night
Hotel and home rentals are going to be the most expensive part of this vacation. The cheapest hotels we found were $300/night. There is a campground in Virgin Islands National Park which is the most budget friendly place to stay at $50/night, tent rental extra. We really leaned into the expensive vacation and decided to pay $410/night for a place up in the hills with a great view and an infinity pool.
If you are looking to save money, you can find hotels or room rentals for as low as $150/night. However, in order to get those, you’ll need to book months in advance as they tend to go first.
Where To Stay In St. John?
The big question is should you stay in Cruz Bay or Coral Bay? And it is a good question. Cruz Bay is busier, has more places to stay and more places to eat. However, Coral Bay is prettier, quieter and has less traffic. We stayed in Coral Bay for this reason. However, if you want to save money, Cruz Bay is the better option as there are more “cheap” rentals and your transportation costs will also be cheaper.
Transportation
Transportation is another area where you just can’t seem to save money.
Flights – $750/person
First, flights tend to be kinda pricy. And not very convenient. If you are flying to St. Thomas during the high season, you’ll find direct flight between $500-1000 dollars/person from the U.S. However, if you are flying to St. Thomas outside of the tourism season, you’ll likely pay near $1000 dollars or more for a super long multi-connection flight lasting about 20 hours from the U.S. Whereas other destinations will save you money by traveling outside of the main season, you will not save money traveling outside the main season to St. John.
Ferry ($50) & Taxis ($23/person)
Next, getting to St. John from St. Thomas costs about $25 for a round trip ferry ride. This is pretty cheap and is the only cheap part about transportation. However, you’ll need to take a taxi to the ferry terminal from the airport. This costs $17/person plus a $6/bag charge. Taxi prices in St. John are regulated so you can take any taxi at the airport and this will be the cost. Taxis charge on a per person basis and you will be sharing it with other people as most taxis are large vans.
Car Rental and Gas – $140/day
And lastly, getting around St. John is costly if you want to rent a car. Rental cars on St. John are all AWD or 4WD vehicles. They all rent for around $125/day. Also, rental car companies on St. John charge for cars similar to how hotels charge for rooms. There is a set pickup time and drop off time. There are no partial day charges. Keep this in mind when making your reservations.
You’ll also need to budget for gas. The good news is the island is small so you won’t be using a ton of gas. The bad news is gas is expensive, as it is on most islands. We drove a ton and we still only spent about $20/day on gas.
St. John Taxis – $40/day
You can also get around St. John via taxi. Taxi prices range from $5-15 depending on where you’re heading. However, you’ll need to arrange a round trip ride and getting a return taxi from a beach at the end of the day can be a challenge. This can be a budget friendly way to get around but it requires a little bit of extra planning. Also, the taxis are cool – they’re called safaris – and they’re pickup trucks with seats in the back bed.
Choosing to take taxis rather than renting cars is one of the few ways to save money on your St. John vacation cost.
Food – $60/person/day
Food is another expensive thing on St. John. And this makes sense because everything has to be imported to the island.
We spent about $100 on each sit down meal for two. And if you are imagining cheap Caribbean drinks famous on other islands, you will be unpleasantly surprised. Drinks cost about $13/drink, which really hurt the budget.
Normally, we love to go grocery shopping so that we can pack lunches and save some money. We went grocery shopping in St. John and bought food for 3 lunches and 3 breakfasts and spent $75. Which was not nearly as budget friendly as this strategy has proved to be in other locations.
The best advice we can give for lowering your St. John vacation cost is to pack food and bring it with you. We generally pack non-perishable snacks and breakfast foods and bring it with us. We didn’t do that here and our food budget showed it.
Activities – $5/person
The one and only saving grace for your St. John travel budget is the activities budget. You’ll need to budget $5/person to visit Trunk Bay. And that’s it. You could easily spend your entire vacation on St. John without spending another dollar on activities.
However, if you want to do half day tours such as snorkeling, scuba diving or boating, budget about $100/person for each half day tour. Rates vary a bit depending on the type of tour but this is a good rough budget number.
Tips For Reducing Your St. John Vacation Cost
- Bring your own snorkel gear – you can easily spend $25/day on snorkel rentals or you could buy a cheap set online before you go for $30 and pack them for daily use. If you buy your snorkel set through this link, we’ll earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
- Rent a room in a home – the cheapest places to stay were private rooms in people’s homes. While this may not be the desired option, it was definitely the cheapest option. And lots of those room rentals still come with great views and sweet pools.
- Stay in Cruz Bay and take taxis – this is not the most convenient way to get around St. John. However it is the cheapest. While this wouldn’t work well if your short on time and trying to cram a lot into your days, this actually would work well for longer trips where you just want to got to a few places each day.
Is St. John Worth The Cost?
If you asked me when I was snorkeling on the most amazing beaches, I would have said yes. If you ask me now that I’ve looked at the complete budget, I would say not really. We spent almost $1000/day on our vacation. For this amount of money, we could have done a lot in other destinations. If I could have gotten this price tag down to $500/day, I would say it was totally worth it.
However, it was a really cool place to visit for a short period of time. If I had to choose again, I still would go for the snorkeling alone. However, I would have limited the amount of money we spent on accommodations, transportation and food. We could have found a cheaper place to stay because we barely spent time there and I would have camped at Cinnamon Bay because that campground was really neat. And we should have gone with cheaper food because the expensive food we ate was not worth it. However, I admit there isn’t anywhere on the island with cheaper food. So rather than eating out each night and grocery shopping I would have packed stuff from the U.S. to cook myself.
And there it is! A full breakdown of a St. John vacation cost. I wish we could provide you with more tips for saving money, but we truly can’t think of any more. If you completely ignore how expensive St. John is, I know you’ll have a great time on the beaches enjoying the sun!
