You Don't Need a Passport for This Incredible Private Island Resort — With White-sand Beaches, Great Snorkeling, and a 70-foot Infinity Pool

Lovango Resort & Beach Club is the perfect mix of deserted island seclusion and full-service beach resort hotel.

When you get right down to it, there are two types of fly-and-flop beach-resort devotees: The kind who adore a no-shirts, no-shoes, not-quite-no-service deserted-island retreat versus those who demand a much higher-touch, dress-to-impress beach-club vibe. Regardless of which of those two pools you fall into (or even if you find yourself splashing around somewhere in between), Lovango Resort & Beach Club has more than enough to float your boat.

This petite, family-owned and operated Caribbean retreat on a largely uninhabited island just off the coast of St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, creatively combines some of the best elements of a light-on-the-land but still luxe African safari camp with those of favorite high-end Mediterranean and Aegean beach club resorts. And, as I discovered on a recent visit over a spring holiday weekend with my family, it does so in ways that let you be as see-and-be-seen as you’d like by your fellow well-heeled guests and the always-at-the-ready staff — or as entirely unseen as you might prefer.

The secret to achieving this neat trick lies in the fact that Lovango, and the island it sits on, proves itself two different beach resorts in one — because it’s home to two very different beaches.

On the south side, facing St. Thomas and St. John, you’ve got a happening beach club with shaded, fabric-draped cabanas alongside a 70-foot-long infinity-edge pool and seaside chaises set in the palm-dotted sand. Here, poppy music is piped in through a hidden speaker, and an enticing food and drink menu mixes items highbrow and low — lobster guac, anyone?

You’ll find plenty of hotel guests at play, plus day visitors who come in off stylish motor yachts and sailing catamarans to partake of the elevated, barefoot-chic hospitality. The scene can be pretty high-fashion and high-octane, though still surprisingly family-friendly, thanks to pool toys, an oversized chess board, and kid-pleasing lunch and dinner options like grilled cheese.

On the other side of the island — closer to the 11 screened-in, glamping-style canvas tents, the five treehouse-style suites, and the two cottages (one of which we stayed in) — is the utterly quiet Crescent Beach. This stretch of powdery sand and rounded stones faces the uninhabited bird sanctuary of Congo Island across a narrow water channel such a bright turquoise that it almost looks neon. It's here, by contrast, that you’re unlikely to see another soul.

During my stay with my husband and our two young children, most guests preferred the beach club over Crescent Beach, which felt like excellent news. In the morning and afternoon, we had Crescent, which sits down a steep hill from the creature comforts of the cliff-clinging accommodations, all to ourselves.

We snorkeled, sunbathed on chaises or towels, and swam out to a floating raft to collect sculptural shards of coral and driftwood, then scoured the rocks for sea fans and hermit crabs and the skies above for pelicans. Here, we found the best of both worlds: deserted island seclusion backed up by the full-service beach resort hotel behind us.

And what service it provides. Lovango’s Boston-based owners, the Snider family, got their start in the hotel business with two now-beloved Massachusetts island hotels: the Winnetu, on Martha’s Vineyard and the Nantucket on, wait for it, Nantucket.

The chops they honed at these properties and the staff they trained up there have come to serve them well here. The crew of servers, hosts, reception folks, guest experience coordinators, boat captains, and ATV-style golf cart drivers all seem to have been born with the hospitality gene.

That makes them quick to get the job done, easy with a smile, and easy to talk to as they (safely) speed you from one side of the island to another, bring you an off-menu prickly pear margarita, or offer a call ahead to a friend at a St. John restaurant to get you a table when you hadn’t made a reservation in advance. It’s hard to get much closer to paradise.

Here is everything you need to know about Lovango.

Lovango Resort & Beach Club, St. John

• The contrasting styles of Lovango’s deserted island castaway Crescent Beach and its see-and-be-seen beach club with cabanas, chaises, food and drink service, and a 70-foot infinity pool means there's something for everyone.

• A daily family-style buffet breakfast is included in nightly hotel rates and serves fresh-cut fruit, eggs, frittatas, yogurt, granola, and locally-roasted coffee in a hilltop safari-style glamping tent with stellar views.

• There's access to some of the best local snorkeling right in the house reef accessed from one of the island's piers on the beach club side.

• The light-on-the-land, slower-travel ethos of the resort and its design, with local materials used in construction, is noticeable, with initiatives like a coral regrowth project in the house reef and a goal of 70 percent of power coming from solar.

The Rooms

We stayed in one of the prototypes of Lovango’s new one-bedroom cottages (comparable to the property’s original treehouses). More solid and permanent in both style and substance than the glamping-style safari tents, these metal-roofed wooden structures offer a large bedroom and bathroom, both with plenty of storage, plus a small living area with windows on three sides and a daybed that can turn into an extra sleeping space for kids.

All are done in soft but warm earth tones, especially cocoas, cognacs, and beiges. They generously use medium-tone carved woods, plus woven materials like wicker, rattan, rope, and printed textiles that all speak of the islands' Afro-Caribbean craft heritage.

Lovango plans to focus on this room style for the future, with all of them, like ours, built as pairs that share a front gate and walkway. This arrangement is better suited to accommodating groups of friends or family traveling together. The wraparound balcony is also shared, though the cottage on each side feels private and has its own seating area.

More intrepid travelers— us pre-kids or those traveling sans little ones — enjoy stays in glamping tents. These tents mimic the best of what you might find in the Masai Mara or Mozambique, their canvas walls rolling up to reveal screens. Mosquito netting romantically drapes canopy beds, and the entire front of the tent opens to a broad balcony overlooking Crescent Beach, Congo Island, and the turquoise channel in between.

Food and Drink

Hotel breakfast fan that I am, I especially loved the morning meal at Lovango — served in a safari-tent set up at one of the island’s higher points with surrounding water views. Think abundant fresh fruit, strong coffee (brewed using beans from Virgin Islands Coffee Roasters), and frittatas, with pancakes and waffles for the kids. (One caveat here, early risers: Breakfast starts at 8:30 a.m., leaving many early mornings between kid wake-ups and food time. The in-room Nespresso pod machines helped.)

We grabbed casual lunch at the Sand Pit, whose picnic-style and lounge tables are set up, true to the place’s name, right in the sand. The menu of gourmet pizzas, grain bowls, salads, and sandwiches also feeds those at the pool, as well as beach cabanas and chaises.

Finer dining happens at dinnertime at the ocean-front restaurant, with tables under the boughs of beachfront trees and in a high-ceilinged clubhouse building with louvered doors flung wide open. Best in show here: pillowy gnocchi served with sea urchin plucked from the rocks just yards away from where we were seated.

There was plenty of wine on hand, but we especially liked experimenting with the creative off-menu cocktails offered by servers and bartenders — that prickly pear margarita and another slightly spicy version that balanced heat with citrus.

Activities and Experiences

In many ways, being on the private island Lovango, with its beach club and castaway-style Crescent Beach, is all the experience and amenity you could want — or that we could, anyway. But there’s more going on here than that; much of it is waterborne.

At the beach club, you can grab snorkels, masks, and fins in both adult and kid sizes to venture into the house reef, located just offshore. You can walk right into the water, jump off a dock, or take a ladder from the pier, and then be immersed in some of the best marine life-viewing in the area.

Just before I went in for the first time, while my husband and our 6-year-old were in the water, and I was on the shore feeding our infant, a fellow guest said, “I hope you get in there. We’ve been in the Virgin Islands for a week and snorkeled in 10 places. This is the best fish and coral we’ve seen.” We have Lovango’s coral restoration project in partnership with the University of the Virgin Islands to thank for much of that.

Lovango also runs its ferry regularly to Cruz Bay and Honeymoon Beach on nearby St. John. The latter gives you easy access to one of the best sandy beaches, while Cruz Bay gives you access to St. John’s relative bustle of restaurants, bars, and more. The hotel can arrange private sailing and motor yacht charters as well.

Accessibility and Sustainability

Guests are free to wander the island’s gravel roads and paths on hikes or more leisurely walks or just to get from their rooms down to the beaches and restaurants, but we would mostly call for a ride in one of the all-terrain golf carts driven by able staff. That helps with accessibility in and around what can be rugged terrain.

Lovango strives for sustainability. In addition to that coral-restoration project, the resort aims to get 70 percent of its power from solar, and it desalinates and filters seawater to make potable water for the resort.

Family-friendly Offerings

Our 6-year-old loved the whole Robinson Crusoe-esque element of the Lovango experience, from taking a catamaran ferry to the resort from St. Thomas to sleeping with the sound of waves in the background to using the outdoor shower. The giant chess set, grilled cheese, kid-sized snorkel masks for the beach, and diving toys at that massive pool didn’t hurt either.

The resort staff went out of their way to ensure we were set up with a travel crib for our 11-month-old. They even added a pop-up twin-size air mattress to the bedroom when we decided we’d all room together rather than have the 6-year-old on the day bed. (That way, we could use the living area while he slept.)

Hikes up to the island’s highest point and the field trip to St. John’s Honeymoon Beach, where we snorkeled with a sea turtle, only added to the joy.

For the height of the 2024 winter and spring seasons, Lovango added a weekday-only late-morning-to-early-afternoon drop-off, supervised children’s program. During this program, kids could do arts and crafts, play board and lawn games, or use a VR headset, Wii, or Amazon Fire tablet. (We didn’t get to check this out because we had only a weekend stay.)

Location

Pretty unbeatable. You can’t top the proximity to the relative big-city vibes of St. Thomas and St. John — each a quick ride away on the resort’s ferry — but you still feel worlds away, nestled in the wilds of your own private island, populated by just a few handfuls of overnight guests and a few more daytime visitors.

The resort’s ferry leaves the marina in Red Hook, on St. Thomas, a few times daily, making it easy to get from St. Thomas, where the airport is, to Lovango. Car service can be arranged by the hotel from the airport to Red Hook, where the waterside restaurant Dock’d makes it easy to relax, regroup, and unwind from the flight down while you wait for your ship to come in. (I also was told while on the island that a helicopter has landed at Lovango, though there’s no heliport per se.)

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Stay

Though Lovango doesn’t offer an all-inclusive option, discounts, or loyalty benefits, since it’s an independent, family-owned boutique property and not part of a larger hotel company, every stay comes with a suite of complimentary amenities for all guests.

Use the resort catamaran ferry and flat-bottomed shuttle to get to and from Lovango for arrival and departure, but also for day trips to St. John and St. Thomas. During the daily breakfast (which is included), have a chat with the head of guest-services or a member of the team, to plan the shape of your day from morning through dinner. You also have full access and guaranteed seating at the beach club, plus the opportunity to join free Friday yoga classes, and borrow snorkeling equipment.

From time to time, Lovango also puts together packages, like a solo getaway that comes with a resort credit or a girl’s getaway that includes in-room Champagne, a boat charter, a beach picnic, a beach club cabana rental, and a private yoga class.

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