Little Trunk Bay on Virgin Gorda

Little Trunk Bay, Virgin Gorda at a glance

Updated Oct 23, 2026.

Routes to Little Trunk Bay, Virgin Gorda

About 10 minutes by car from Spanish Town. How to reach the British Virgin Islands: British Virgin Islands map, British Virgin Islands weather, month by month, Ferries between the British Virgin Islands, Getting to the British Virgin Islands, Things to do in Tortola and the British Virgin Islands.

How to get to Little Trunk Bay

On foot from Spring Bay. Drive or take a taxi from the Spanish Town ferry dock south through The Valley to where the road meets the sand at Spring Bay, about 10 minutes, then walk to the north end of the beach. A trail leaves there through the boulders, and the National Parks Trust says it runs on to Valley Trunk Bay past rock pools and swimming spots. Little Trunk Bay is the first cove it reaches, about 300 m in a straight line.

The trail is not mapped, so our measurement goes round by the lanes: about 9 minutes from Spring Bay's sand, and 12 from The Baths lot. Through the rocks it is shorter but slower going, with gaps to duck through and wet granite underfoot, so wear shoes that grip. A lane does come down to within a minute of the sand, but it serves the villas on the hillside, and no public path from it is mapped. By boat, take a Trust mooring off Spring Bay and come ashore there.

Is Little Trunk Bay public, and is there a fee?

The sand is public. On March 9, 2023, the territory's Minister for Natural Resources and Labour told the House of Assembly that all BVI beaches are public, and that even where a beach adjoins private property, access must still be provided. The villas above the cove and their gardens are private; the beach and the water are not.

The fee is less clear-cut, and the honest answer is that nobody posts one. The National Parks Trust's Greater Baths Day Pass, $3 an adult and $2 a child as of October 2026, covers Devil's Bay, The Baths, Stoney Bay and Spring Bay, and no Trust page names Little Trunk Bay. Walk in through Spring Bay and you are in a park on that pass; the cove itself, by our read, collects nothing. Hours are the same story: none posted here, and The Baths next door open at 8:30 am and close at 4:30 pm.

What Little Trunk Bay is like

A short crescent of white sand, about a hundred meters end to end, closed at both ends by the same granite boulders that made The Baths famous. It is that boulder landscape without the line for the passages. No ship sells it as an excursion, the walk keeps most people on Spring Bay's lawn, and on a weekday morning the sand is often empty.

The tradeoff: there is nothing here. No bar, no restroom, no chairs, and the only shade is in the lee of the rocks. Bring water, lunch and something to sit on, or have the picnic on Spring Bay's lawn and come here to swim. It suits a couple, or a family with children old enough to scramble; with a toddler, carry them through the rocks or stay by the Crawl.

Snorkeling and swimming at Little Trunk Bay

The water is clear and, on most days, calm, sheltered by the boulders at either end. The snorkeling follows those rocks a few strokes from a sandy entry, with parrotfish and smaller reef fish around the granite, and we rate it 4 of 5: good rock and fish close in, with the swell and the walk as the drawbacks.

The cove faces west onto the Sir Francis Drake Channel, the same way Spring Bay and The Baths do. When strong winter swells come through, the Trust discourages swimming at The Baths and its moorings may be unusable, and by our read of the map Little Trunk Bay takes the same water. On those days, look from the rocks and swim another day. There is no lifeguard.