My favorite vacation ever was camping in the U.S. Virgin Islands national park on St. John. (I am suddenly having a flashback of writing a paper in the third grade, "How I spent my summer vacation" . . .)
Anyway, my partner at the time and I flew down to St. Thomas with all our camping and snorkeling gear. We spent our first and last nights at a B&B in Charlotte Amalie, visiting some great restaurants, drinking, and applying toothpaste to our mosquito bites. In between, via someone's personal fishing boat/water taxi, we traveled to St. John.
Cinnamon Bay campground is one of the nicest campgrounds I have ever been to. You camp right on the beach, but each campsite is private - they are separated by palm trees and these gigantic bushes with huge leaves. The facilities are extensive, nice and well-maintained; they have hot showers (need I say more?) Here's their web site:
https://cinnamonbayresort.com/
The snorkeling was great. The water was clear, and warm. There were many opportunities for interacting with nature - I really felt a part of it, not just like an observer. The birds were fantastic. The mongooses were gigantic, and really fast. The crabs crawled past our tent down the beach every night. I had an (unwanted) close encounter with some large underwater predator - probably a shark . . . but I've told that story in another thread, so I won't repeat it here, except to say we were lucky and all turned out well.
The nearby town of Cruz Bay offers some nightlife, including some fantastic restaurants. Everything is on the pricey end. But, we did most of our eating by grilling out on the beach, anyway, so it was worth the splurges.
I miss this place so much. No other vacation has ever measured up, although I try to judge each one on its own merits. (I've traveled a bit around the world; I've stayed in hostels and resorts and 5-star hotels; I love Disney World. But this camping vacation on St. John was the ultimate. Really.) I don't think I will ever re-experience anything like it, either, because I am no longer physically capable of tent camping, and what with TSA now, I'm not sure it's possible to fly with all that equipment like we did back then. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Thanks for traveling with me down memory lane.