6 BVI Hotels on the Sailing Islands

The British Virgin Islands hold the largest bareboat charter fleet in the world, and the reason is geography. Around sixty islands and cays sit within a few miles of each other in a rough chain, with Tortola and its neighbours forming a natural breakwater along the north. The water inside that chain — the Sir Francis Drake Channel — is protected, the trade winds are steady out of the east, and you can navigate the whole archipelago by eye.

That combination means someone with modest experience can sail here without instruments, anchor in a different bay each night and never be more than an hour from the next one. It is why the charter industry settled here and why a large share of visitors arrive by boat rather than staying in a hotel at all.

What a hurricane did

In September 2017 Irma passed directly over the territory as a category five storm, followed by Maria two weeks later. The damage was close to total: the sailing fleet was destroyed, the airport terminal and most hotels were unroofed or flattened, and the recovery took years rather than months.

The islands have come back. Several landmark resorts stayed shut until 2020 or later and one of the best-known reopened only recently. If you are booking somewhere small or off Tortola, it is worth confirming current operating status directly rather than assuming.

The islands

Tortola is the main island with the airport, the ferries, Road Town and the charter bases.

Virgin Gorda, east, has the Baths — granite boulders the size of houses, tumbled together at the shoreline into tidal grottoes and pools you scramble and swim through — and most of the luxury.

Jost Van Dyke, northwest, has around three hundred residents and a beach bar culture that is genuinely famous among sailors.

Anegada, fifteen miles north, is the odd one: flat coral rather than volcanic, ringed by an eighteen-mile reef, with lobster and flamingos and almost nothing else.

The six below are grouped by island.

Virgin Gorda

The Baths and the luxury end.

Rosewood Little Dix Bay occupies a crescent bay with cottages among sea grape and palm, a beach that runs the length of the property and a restrained tone it has held since the 1960s. It reopened after Irma and it remains the best hotel in the territory.

Oil Nut Bay sits at the northeastern tip of Virgin Gorda with villas on a headland, reachable only by boat or helicopter, a marina and a beach club.

Tortola and the nearby cays

The main island and its satellites.

Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina occupies its own small island off Tortola, reached by a short ferry, with a marina, a spa and villas above the water.

Long Bay Beach Resort sits on a mile of beach on Tortola's northwest coast with a pool, a golf course and a long-standing family clientele.

Peter Island and Cooper Island

The privately held cays.

Peter Island Resort occupies an entire private island in the Drake Channel with five beaches, a spa and a marina, reopened after a long rebuild.

Cooper Island Beach Club sits on Cooper Island as a small solar-powered property with a dive shop, a brewery and a rum bar, on an island with nothing else on it.

What we have left off

The charter yachts are excluded, and in the BVI they are how a very large share of visitors actually stay — a boat, a crew or not, and a different anchorage each night. They are vessels rather than hotels.

What to do

Charter something, even for a day. A skippered daysail from Tortola gets you to Norman Island, the Indians and Jost Van Dyke and is the point of the place.

Do the Baths early, before the day boats. You wade, scramble and swim through granite chambers between Devil's Bay and the entrance, and it takes about forty minutes at a gentle pace.

Go to Jost Van Dyke for the beach bars at White Bay, where the painkiller cocktail was invented and the boats anchor off and swim in.

Snorkel the wreck of the RMS Rhone off Salt Island, a mail ship sunk in an 1867 hurricane, which sits in shallow enough water for snorkellers over parts of it.

Eat lobster on Anegada, which is the island's whole economy, ordered in the morning for the evening.

Practical notes

There are no direct long-haul flights. Most visitors route through St Thomas, San Juan or Antigua and then take a ferry or a short hop to Beef Island.

December to April is the dry season and peak. Hurricane season runs June to November with the peak from August to October. Late spring and early summer are good value.

The islands are quiet. There is very little nightlife beyond the beach bars, which is the appeal.

Why is it a sailing destination?

Sixty islands within sight of each other, protected water inside the chain and steady trade winds. You can navigate it by eye.

Has it recovered from Irma?

Substantially, though several properties reopened only in 2020 or later. Confirm status directly for smaller places.

Which island?

Virgin Gorda for the Baths and the luxury, Tortola for connections, the cays for privacy.

How many nights?

Seven. The connections make anything shorter poor value.

If you only book one