St. Croix has long been a beach-and-rum destination, but the island's forested interior just got its own headline act. Maroon Sanctuary Territorial Park, established in 2025, protects 2,469 acres in the island's rugged northwest — land where people who escaped slavery found refuge in the 1700s and early 1800s, and where former Danish sugar plantations have been quietly reclaimed by tropical forest since emancipation in 1848.
The park is the brainchild of local naturalist Olasee Davis, an ecologist and University of the Virgin Islands professor who has spent over four decades bushwhacking through what's known as Maroon Country, documenting hidden burial grounds marked with conch shells and weathered headstones, along with old mill sites and estate roads. Now, with official protection in place, that work continues more systematically.
For travellers, the practical news is the trail network. The first official segment opened in May: a three-mile hiking and mountain-biking loop on the slopes of 1,165-foot Mount Eagle, the island's highest point. It climbs past butterflies and bananaquits to the stone remnants of an old watchtower, with a 270-degree outlook spanning emerald peaks on one side and the turquoise water of Cane Bay on the other. When finished, the system will stretch 30 miles through the backcountry, stitched together from former plantation paths and forgotten forest routes. In the meantime, hiring a guide like Davis pays off — expect encounters with soursop trees, mango and papaya introductions, and the infamous stinking toe tree, whose seed pods smell like sweaty socks even if the pulp inside is reportedly an acquired-taste treat.
The park's boundaries reach the sea, too, shielding Cane Bay's coral reef and the Annaly Bay tide pools from sediment runoff. That makes pairing a hike with a snorkel easy: rent gear at Sweet Bottom Dive Center and swim with parrotfish, angelfish, and the occasional grazing sea turtle just offshore.
Sleep and eat close to the action at The Waves at Cane Bay, an 11-room oceanfront boutique hotel reimagined in 2021, with private patios, two bars, and the sustainable seafood restaurant Ama — a short walk from the beach and a nine-minute drive from the Mount Eagle trailhead. Across the road, the Landing Beach Bar plates jerk chicken and fried plantains, while Leatherback Brewing Company, St. Croix's first craft brewery, doubles as a mountain-biking hangout with a full-service bike shop inside.
Who's it for? Anyone who's done the classic USVI beach holiday and wants a second layer: history-focused travellers, hikers, and mountain bikers especially. Pack the hiking boots — the forest, and the stories inside it, are the reason to come.
