Things to Do in British Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands are built for the water, and the best way to experience them is from a boat. The territory's 60-plus islands and cays are spaced close enough that you can sail between them in an hour or two, yet each feels like a different world. Most visitors begin in Tortola, where Road Town serves as the departure point for bareboat and crewed charters.

If you have never chartered before, companies like The Moorings and Sunsail at Wickham's Cay offer monohulls and catamarans with briefing sessions that cover the local waters - the sailing here is forgiving, with consistent trade winds and short passages protected by the island chain. From Tortola, the classic route heads east to Virgin Gorda and The Baths, where house-sized granite boulders form a labyrinth of sea pools and grottoes along the beach. Arrive before 10 a.m. to beat the day-trip crowds, and follow the trail through the boulders to Devil's Bay for a less crowded swim.

Norman Island, said to be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, has caves at its western tip where you can snorkel among schools of tarpon and silversides in the filtered light. The floating bar at the Pirates Bight restaurant draws the charter crowd for sunset. Jost Van Dyke, the smallest of the four main islands, is home to the Soggy Dollar Bar on White Bay - the birthplace of the Painkiller cocktail, a potent blend of rum, coconut cream, pineapple, and orange juice topped with nutmeg.

The bar got its name because there is no dock; you swim ashore and pay with soggy bills. For diving, the wreck of the RMS Rhone off Salt Island is the territory's premier dive site, a 310-foot Royal Mail steamer that sank in an 1867 hurricane and now lies in 30 to 80 feet of water, encrusted in coral and teeming with fish. Cooper Island Beach Club is a solar-powered eco-resort with a microbrewery and excellent mooring, worth a night on the hook. Anegada, 15 miles north and the only flat coral island in the chain, breaks from the volcanic landscape entirely and offers miles of empty beach, a massive barrier reef, and the best lobster dinner in the BVI.