St-Thomas

Brewers Bay is where St. Thomas residents and university students go, and it is free with no cruise excursion traffic at all. The water is shallow, calm and clean, with sea grape trees giving real shade along the back - a rare and valuable thing on a Caribbean beach. There is seagrass offshore that sometimes brings turtles in. Food vans park on the road behind selling pates and local plates. The unusual feature is the airport: the runway ends just along the shore, so aircraft come in low directly over the water, which most children find far more interesting than the swimming.

Coki is a small beach with an outsized reputation underwater. Rocky points at both ends hold coral and the fish life is dense and close in - blue tang, sergeant majors, parrotfish, squirrelfish - starting only a few metres from the sand in water shallow enough for a child to stand. That combination of easy access and real reef is uncommon. It is compact and gets crowded on cruise days, and there is persistent, insistent vending on the beach that some visitors find wearing. Feeding fish is discouraged. Coral World Ocean Park is immediately next door.

Coral World’s centrepiece is an observatory tower built down into the reef offshore, so you descend a spiral staircase and look out through windows at wild fish and coral in open water rather than a tank. Around it are touch pools with starfish and urchins, a sea turtle pool, a shark tank and a nature trail with lorikeets. Paid add-ons include a sea lion encounter and a Sea Trek helmet walk on the seabed for older children. It works well as a wet-weather or rough-sea alternative, and it sits directly beside Coki Beach so the two combine into a full day.

Lindquist is the beach St. Thomas residents recommend when you ask where they go. It is a protected territorial park, which means a small entry fee, a gate, and consequently far fewer people than the free beaches. The sand is soft, the water is shallow and clear with almost no wave action, and there is snorkelling around the rocks at the eastern end. The view runs across Smith Bay to St. John and the British Virgin Islands beyond. Facilities are basic - restrooms and picnic shelters, no concession - so bring food and water. It closes on some days of the week.

Magens Bay is a deep horseshoe with headlands on both sides, which blocks the swell almost entirely and leaves a mile of flat, warm, shallow water. For toddlers and nervous swimmers there is nothing better in the territory. The trade-off is that a sheltered sandy bay is not a snorkelling bay - there is little to see underwater compared with Coki or Maho. Facilities are full: restrooms, showers, a snack bar, chair and kayak rental, and shade under the sea grape trees. It is a major cruise excursion, so port days transform it; check the schedule.

Sapphire combines things that usually do not come together: a genuinely good reef within easy swimming distance at Pettyklip Point, and a broad shallow sandy stretch in the middle where small children can play safely. The snorkelling holds turtles, rays and reef fish. Trade winds funnel through here, which is why windsurfers and kiteboarders use it and why afternoons get choppy - mornings are noticeably calmer. There is a beach bar, watersports rentals and a marina alongside. Public access is via the resort, which is legal and normal in the USVI, where all beaches are public.