Planning a Trip

Getting There

Unless you're on a budget, skip the ferry and fly to Vieques, especially if your time is limited. The money you'll save will buy you another day on one of its beautiful beaches, a bargain for the $100 tops airfare. Flights to Vieques leave from Isla Grande Airport near the heart of San Juan as well as the main Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport near Isla Verde. Your best hassle-free option is Isla Grande.

Vieques Air Link (tel. 888/901-9247 or 787/741-8331) has the most flights and the best prices. It operates three daily flights from LMM International as well as six flights from the smaller and more convenient Isla Grande Airport. The VAL flight from Isla Grande, about $98 round-trip, is the most reliable and convenient travel option to Vieques. It's about half the rate from LMM International, which is $180. Isla Nena (tel. 787/741-8331) is an on-demand airline that flies to Vieques from the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport outside Isla Verde (round-trip at $180 is no bargain, however.) M&N Aviation (tel. 787/791-7008) is another option and has some of the best aircraft servicing the island.

The Puerto Rico Port Authority operates two ferries a day to Vieques from the eastern port of Fajardo; the trip takes about an hour. The round-trip fare is $4.50 for adults, $2 for children. Tickets for the morning ferry that leaves Saturday and Sunday sell out quickly, so you should be in line at the ticket window in Fajardo before 8am (it opens at 6:30am) to be certain of a seat on the 9am boat. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until the 1 or 3pm ferry. For more information about these sea links, call tel. 800/981-2005, or 787/863-0705 (Fajardo), or 787/741-4761 (Vieques). Ferries leave Fajardo for Vieques at 9:30am, 1pm, 4:30pm, and 8pm during the week and at 9am, 3pm, and 6pm on weekends and holidays.

Getting Around

Public cabs or vans called públicos transport people around the island. To fully experience Vieques, however, you should rent a jeep, so that you can fully explore it. The mountainous interior, more than a dozen beaches, and the nature reserves on former military bases absolutely require it. To do this, contact Island Car Rental (tel. 787/741-1666), in the hamlet of Florida, about a 12-minute ride southwest of Isabel Segunda, 5 minutes from the airport. The office is next door to the Crow's Nest hotel. The cost of the local vehicles begins at $51 per day, plus another $12 for collision-damage-waiver insurance. American Express, MasterCard, and Visa cards are accepted. We also recommend Marcos Car Rental (tel. 787/741-1388).

You can also rent a Jeep Wrangler or Cherokee from Martineau Car Rental, Rte. 200 Km 3.2 (tel. 787/741-0078), with prices also starting out at $50 a day. The rental outlet is the closest to the airport, right outside the Martineau Bay resort. But all the rental agencies will meet you at the airport or ferry if you prearrange a rental (which we recommend).

Aficionados of Vieques praise the island for its wide profusion of sandy beaches. Since the pullout of the U.S. Navy, some of the sites that were formerly off-limits have been made accessible to hikers, cyclists, bird-watchers, beachcombers, and other members of the public.

The best beaches are Red Beach (Bahia Corcha), Blue Beach (Bahia de la Chiva), and Playa Plata. To reach these, take the tarmac-covered road that juts eastward from a point near the southern third of Route 997. Entrance to this part of the island, formerly occupied by the navy, will be identified as Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre de Vieques, with warnings near its entrance that camping and littering are not allowed. Drive for about a mile (1.6km) along this road, turning right at the sign pointing to Red Beach (Bahia Corcha). En route, you'll have one of the few opportunities in the world to gun your rented car along the battered tarmac of what used to be a landing strip (a very long one) for the navy. Pretend, if you like, however briefly, that you're on a test track for the Indianapolis 500, exercising, naturally, all due caution.

Continue driving to the crescent-shaped, wide-open-to-view expanses of Red Beach, where about a dozen metal-roofed gazebos, many atop cement slabs and accented with picnic tables, provide shelter from the sun, and where "Job Jonnies" (that is, portable chemical toilets) are available. Red Beach, which has picnic tables, is the most family-friendly beach on the island.

At Blue Beach the sands are less wide than those of Red Beach. At Blue Beach mangrove and scrub trees grow close to the water's edge. This beach attracts romantic couples or escapists who fantasize they'll happen across a porno shoot. Devotees appreciate the broken sightlines between the bathing spaces, the labyrinth of narrow, rutted dirt roads leading to the individual bathing sites, and the sense of genteel isolation from other sunbathers.

There are signs, within the park, to minor beaches, Playa Caracas, Caya Melones, and even Playuela, but the access roads are blocked off by the Park Service.

We like the myriad coves, one of which is Playa Chiva, that pepper the coastline between Blue Beach and the end of the line, Playa Plata, which is as far as a conventional visitor can travel within the park. They're secluded from view, and you'll get the distinct feeling that some of the sunbathers might be making love behind the seagrapes, scrub trees, and palmettos.

The most visible public-works project on Vieques is Sun Bay Beach. Its entrance lies off the southern stretch of Route 997. You'll recognize it by a metal sign announcing Balneario Público Sun Bay. Just beyond this sign, you'll see a park dotted with trees, an absurdly large number of parking spaces (which no one uses), and a formal entryway to the park, which virtually everybody ignores. (It evokes a public housing project -- anonymous and unused and unloved.) Locals, as a means of getting closer to the water and the sands, drive along the access road stretching to the left. It parallels a 3/4-mile (1.2km) stretch of tree-dotted beachfront, and they park wherever they find a spot that appeals to them. If you continue to drive past the very last parking spot along Sun Bay Beach, a rutted and winding and very hilly road will lead, after a right-hand fork, to Media Luna Beach and Navio Beach, both pleasant and isolated. A left-hand fork leads to the muddy and rutted parking lot that services Mosquito Bay (or, Phosphorescent Bay).

Playa Esperanza is one of the most frequented beaches on Vieques. It's best for snorkeling, not for beaching it. The beach opens onto the little fishing village of Esperanza on the south coast.