Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

Last updated: December 17, 2023

While visiting the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) with my mom for our birthdays, we decided to spend a day island hopping across the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

After visiting the beautiful Virgin Gorda Baths and Norman Island, we made our final stop at White Bay on Jost Van Dyke. I appreciated the amount of time allotted for us to enjoy this beach as it’s beautiful!

Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main BVI, measuring only 3 square miles. It is said that the name of the island comes from pirate Joost Van Dyk who used the island as a hideout. While there’s not any evidence to support this, there are no other explanations to how the island got its name.

The population at the time of the 2010 Census was 298 with nearly half being under 35 years old and almost 70% being under 50, so it is a young population! There are several famous bars and Kenny Chesney is certainly a fan of the area, mentioning some of the bars in his songs. The Soggy Dollar bar is one of the popular ones and appropriately named as there is not a dock so folks visiting will get wet when coming from boat to shore, and therefore paying with wet bills after ordering food and drinks. Note: I paid with my Apple Watch, so they are set up for that!

There are many options for lunch so this is a great opportunity to fill up. I thought the prices were reasonable, especially if you’re like me and like to split the meal. My mom does not like fish so I ate a mahi mahi wrap which was honestly too much food for me but was delicious and I ate the whole thing (but would have preferred to split it!).

There is a cute gift shop where I actually did wind up buying a Sand Cloud beach towel as I don’t own one and have come to terms with lightweight traveling is the only way to travel. I will use this for all future vacations that include water! This wound up being the only item I purchased during the whole vacation, although I was super tempted to buy this bracelet:

As with all adventures, this one ended and we headed back to St. John.

Because I’m super fancy now, here’s the TikTok overview of White Bay on Jost Van Dyke! In case you’re like me and won’t have a TikTok account until someone creates you an account, here’s the video so you don’t miss out. ☺️

If you’ve been to Jost Van Dyke and either visited White Bay or did something else on the island, please share your experience in the comment section below, found at the very bottom of this page.