Beaches · South Shore

Salt Pond Beach

Salt Pond Bay asks for more effort than most St. John beaches — a roughly 0.3-mile downhill walk from a dirt roadside lot, on the island's less-visited east end — and that friction is exactly what repeat visitors say keeps it uncrowded even in high season. Wild donkeys are a near-constant presence on the trail and beach, described in reviews as curious but harmless. The reward for the walk is snorkeling that several longtime visitors rank among the best on the island: sea turtles, eagle rays, and octopus turn up regularly around the rocks and the jagged rock formation in the middle of the bay, though currents there call for confident swimmers. Salt Pond also functions as a trailhead — the Ram Head hike (about 2 miles round trip, roughly 200 feet of elevation change) leaves from the beach's far end, and the shorter Drunk Bay Trail leads to a rocky, driftwood-strewn shoreline nearby. Facilities are minimal: one bathroom, no running water, and no shade beyond a few picnic tables, so this is a bring-everything kind of beach day.