Solomon Beach

Solomon Beach at a glance

Verified Oct 9, 2026.

Conditions today at Solomon Beach

As of 7:00 AM on Oct 16, 2026, island time. Read each morning from the National Weather Service, DPNR, the National Park Service and Open-Meteo; the bay opens northwest, by our read from the map.

Sea state

Sheltered. The swell is from the east at 0.9 m, period 5 seconds; Solomon Beach opens northwest, so the bay sits in the lee.

Open-Meteo wave model at the nearest ocean cell; the bay's opening is our read from the map.

Rip current risk

Low. Surf around 3 feet, east winds around 15 mph.

National Weather Service San Juan, surf zone forecast for St Thomas, St John and adjacent islands, issued 3:51 AM.

Water test

Not a site in DPNR's weekly programme, which samples St. John only some weeks.

Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Beach Water Quality Monitoring Program.

Park alerts

No alert names Solomon Beach; the park posts 1 alert today.

National Park Service, Virgin Islands National Park alerts.

Rain

Dry through the day; the chance of rain peaks at 21%.

Open-Meteo hourly forecast at the pin.

The day

UV index up to 8; sunset 5:55 pm; sea 30 °C, 85 °F.

Open-Meteo.

Getting there

About 16 minutes on foot from Cruz Bay. How to reach St. John: Airfare to St. John means a flight to St. Thomas, Car ferry from St. Thomas to St. John, How to get around St. John, St. John map, St. John weather by month, St. Thomas to St. John ferry, Things to do in St. John.

How to get to Solomon Beach, St. John, on foot

No road reaches Solomon Beach, so every visit starts at a trailhead. The usual one is behind the park's Cruz Bay Visitor Center, where the Lind Point Trail begins. The park's beach page calls it over a mile up and down a rocky trail; our map measurement is 1.3 km and 16 minutes at a pavement pace, and the park's trails page allows 20 to 40 minutes. Plan on the park's figure, and wear shoes that can take rock. The park says the trail is not suitable for strollers.

The trail has an upper and a lower route, and the park says Salomon is the first beach you come to on the lower one; a spur drops to the sand. The trail-intersection signs on the park's own trails page spell it Solomon, which is how most people search for it; the park's beach pages say Salomon.

The second trailhead is at the Virgin Islands National Park sign on North Shore Road, where the park says to park in one of the first two gravel lots. The third way in is by boat, which the park lists and we do not measure.

Coming from St. Thomas, ride the Red Hook passenger ferry to Cruz Bay; the park says the visitor center is a walk from the ferry terminal. No taxi and no rental car are needed for this beach.

What to expect at Solomon Beach: sand, shade, nothing sold

Expect a small white-sand beach inside Virgin Islands National Park with nothing built on it. The National Park Service's words are short: walk to the beach for a quick dip, or pack a lunch and stay all day. That second clause is the advice. As of October 2026 no park page lists a restroom, a vendor or a lifeguard at Solomon, so carry water and food in and carry the rubbish out.

It is a short beach: about 150 m of sand from end to end by our map measurement. The park's trails page describes a tree-lined beach with the choice of shady or sunny places to sit, and that is the whole inventory.

The tradeoff is the trail. Everything you want on the sand comes in on your back over a rocky path, and it goes out the same way. That is also why the beach stays quieter than the ones a car reaches; the park lists no concession here, and the concession on this trail is at Honeymoon Beach.

Parking is the other constraint, and it belongs to the trailheads, not the beach. The park tells drivers to stop at the visitor center desk for a parking pass. The desk is open Monday to Thursday from 8:15 am to 4:00 pm and Friday from 8:15 am to 1:30 pm, closed Thanksgiving Day, December 25 and July 4, by the park's hours page as of October 2026. It lists no Saturday or Sunday hours, so on a weekend the North Shore Road lots are the drivers' trailhead. Arriving on foot from the ferry avoids the question.

Two park rules apply as on every park beach, per the compendium updated Oct 6, 2026. No pets on the sand, to keep nesting turtles and shore birds undisturbed. No nudity.

Snorkeling the reef between Salomon and Honeymoon

The snorkeling is along the rocky edges, and the reef to swim first is at the east end, off the point between Salomon and Honeymoon Beach. The park's trails page says there is great snorkeling anywhere in the bay, with more fish along the rocks at either side of the beach. Its snorkeling page, updated Jun 6, 2022, lists brain, lettuce leaf, elkhorn, mustard hill and pillar corals in the clear water off that rocky point, and many colonies of finger coral on the fringing reef west of Salomon. We score it 4 of 5: the park names the corals and two local guides call it good, and no authority ranks it among the island's top sites.

The caution is boats. The park's compendium puts snorkeling inside the boat exclusion areas off its beaches and lets vessels under 26 feet through to the sand only by the channels marked with red and green buoys, so stay inside the buoys and keep clear of the marked channel. The park also asks for reef-safe sunscreen, and says to check the ingredients before you buy.

No park page names a lifeguard here as of October 2026, so treat the bay as unguarded. Enter over sand, not over coral, and come out before you are tired, because the walk back is uphill.

Solomon Beach or Honeymoon Beach: which to walk to

Both are on the Lind Point Trail from the same visitor center, and by our measurement they are a minute apart: 16 minutes on foot to Solomon, 17 to Honeymoon Beach, at a pace the rocky trail will slow. The difference is what is at the end. Honeymoon Beach is the longer beach and, as of October 2026, the one with a concession selling food, drinks and chair rentals, covered on its own page. Solomon has the same reef at its east end and no services at all.

So the choice is simple. Walk to Solomon with your own lunch for the emptier sand, and go on to Honeymoon if the day needs something bought.

Suits a day visitor off the Red Hook ferry, a guest staying in Cruz Bay without a car, and a snorkeler happy to carry gear a mile; not a family with a stroller, or anyone who needs a restroom at the beach.