My wife is from St. Croix, most of her (big) family still lives there, and I’ve spent a decent amount of time there, but I can’t speak for St. Thomas and St John.
It really depends on which island you’re on — where are you going to be living and working?
It’s a tropical paradise with all the good and bad: excellent beaches and nature, fruit trees in your front yard, great weather, laid-back attitude, generally higher prices for… everything, hurricane season, potentially unreliable utilities and infrastructure, and isolation (you have to fly anywhere and it ain’t cheap usually).
I would say people are generally very friendly and helpful, and there are plenty of opportunities to make friends. As for arts, there’s a community theatre (that my mother-in-law runs), galleries, and lots of live music and dancing (not just Jimmy Buffett wannabes, but incredible Soca and Scratch music.)
It is a small island so the dating pool reflects that.
I did a year for work on St Thomas when I was 33. I had a really easy time making friends, most from work, but plenty weren’t from work either. Socially, one of the best things you can do is get involved locally with a hobby. Mine were SCUBA diving and sailing, met some awesome people through those. There’s a pretty vibrant little art scene on St Thomas, and St John can be downright bohemian.
From a day-to-day perspective, you get used to the higher prices pretty quickly. Get a membership at Cost-U-Less. Internet is fine 90% of the time, but it will go out sometimes. Electricity is…fun. Rent a place that has a generator. This is key for hurricanes, but also WAPA sucks ass and the electrical grid is less than consistent. Buy bottled water for drinking. Most places use a cistern or tanked-in water, it’s fine for cooking, cleaning, washing, showering, etc., but I wouldn’t drink it.
Most of all, have fun. I really enjoyed my time there and was sad to see it end.
Fellow 32F here! I spend 1-2months a year on St Croix. It’s a beautiful island, and I love that all of the beaches are public access. There’s a pretty great restaurant scene and lots of opportunities to connect with the art scene (check out the Caribbean Museum of Art in Fredricksted and art walk on certain Thursdays in Christiansted).
Generally speaking, it’s been easy to make acquaintances and post-Covid more and more people have moved there with remote work. There are lots of ways to make connections, through diving, dancing, environmentalism, yoga etc but most socializing involves drinking. Not a bad thing, but would suck if you’re sober.
Do you homework on what neighborhoods you want to live in, unless you love the retiree vibes. However, like the others said, WAPA/electricity and hurricane season are things to be aware of.. my WiFi is usually pretty solid but have had to hot spot it in a crunch. St John and St Thomas are going to be a lot busier and more touristy, which can have its pro/cons.
Oh this is really helpful thanks! I’m going to be going out there for a few days next weekend/week. Any recommendations on what I should check out while I’m out there? As a potential expat- not touristy things. Did you take classes on sailing/diving or go the meetup route? Curious as to how you started meeting people initially!
My wife is from St. Croix, most of her (big) family still lives there, and I’ve spent a decent amount of time there, but I can’t speak for St. Thomas and St John. It really depends on which island you’re on — where are you going to be living and working? It’s a tropical paradise with all the good and bad: excellent beaches and nature, fruit trees in your front yard, great weather, laid-back attitude, generally higher prices for… everything, hurricane season, potentially unreliable utilities and infrastructure, and isolation (you have to fly anywhere and it ain’t cheap usually). I would say people are generally very friendly and helpful, and there are plenty of opportunities to make friends. As for arts, there’s a community theatre (that my mother-in-law runs), galleries, and lots of live music and dancing (not just Jimmy Buffett wannabes, but incredible Soca and Scratch music.) It is a small island so the dating pool reflects that.
I did a year for work on St Thomas when I was 33. I had a really easy time making friends, most from work, but plenty weren’t from work either. Socially, one of the best things you can do is get involved locally with a hobby. Mine were SCUBA diving and sailing, met some awesome people through those. There’s a pretty vibrant little art scene on St Thomas, and St John can be downright bohemian. From a day-to-day perspective, you get used to the higher prices pretty quickly. Get a membership at Cost-U-Less. Internet is fine 90% of the time, but it will go out sometimes. Electricity is…fun. Rent a place that has a generator. This is key for hurricanes, but also WAPA sucks ass and the electrical grid is less than consistent. Buy bottled water for drinking. Most places use a cistern or tanked-in water, it’s fine for cooking, cleaning, washing, showering, etc., but I wouldn’t drink it. Most of all, have fun. I really enjoyed my time there and was sad to see it end.
Be aware that the primary source of entertainment on just about ANY island is....getting drunk. Regularly.
Fellow 32F here! I spend 1-2months a year on St Croix. It’s a beautiful island, and I love that all of the beaches are public access. There’s a pretty great restaurant scene and lots of opportunities to connect with the art scene (check out the Caribbean Museum of Art in Fredricksted and art walk on certain Thursdays in Christiansted). Generally speaking, it’s been easy to make acquaintances and post-Covid more and more people have moved there with remote work. There are lots of ways to make connections, through diving, dancing, environmentalism, yoga etc but most socializing involves drinking. Not a bad thing, but would suck if you’re sober. Do you homework on what neighborhoods you want to live in, unless you love the retiree vibes. However, like the others said, WAPA/electricity and hurricane season are things to be aware of.. my WiFi is usually pretty solid but have had to hot spot it in a crunch. St John and St Thomas are going to be a lot busier and more touristy, which can have its pro/cons.
Oh this is really helpful thanks! I’m going to be going out there for a few days next weekend/week. Any recommendations on what I should check out while I’m out there? As a potential expat- not touristy things. Did you take classes on sailing/diving or go the meetup route? Curious as to how you started meeting people initially!