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Enjoy lively festivals, tranquil beaches, and marine adventures across St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix—no passport required.

Already a popular day trip, this jade-colored waterway rocketed to fame as the site of Calypso’s house in Pirates of the Caribbean. Hire a guide and colorful rowboat—most seat up to eight passengers—for the one-mile excursion upstream and watch for crayfish and young barracudas in the brackish river, which is lined by mangroves with mighty buttress roots. Don’t miss the fruit drinks and Dynamite rum punch at Cobra’s Bush Bar, the trip’s turnaround point.

It’s worth planning an entire trip around Vincy Mas, St. Vincent’s carnival celebration. The event begins in late June and lasts for 12 days, bringing with it costumes, parades, parties, food, competitions, the naming of a “calypso monarch” and “carnival king and queen,” and lots and lots of music, from steel pan to soca and calypso. The biggest parades—Monday morning’s J’Ouvert and Tuesday’s all-day Mardi Gras—take place on the last two days of the festival.

Friday is fish day in the Caribbean, and the village of Oistins, on Barbados’s southern coast, hosts its famous Oistins Fish Fry. During the week, market stalls sell fresh dorado, barracuda, swordfish and more. Come Friday night, locals, dressed in their finest, along with tourists drink beer and rum and enjoy heaping plates of grilled fish, fish cakes and lobster. Stalls sell crafts, and everyone dances to live music from the band shell.