Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine April 2017 | Page 528

United States Virgin Islands
A
lso known as USVI, the Islands of St.
John, St. Thomas and St. Croix have an
interesting and diverse history but it is
probably their location and climate that make
them popular with tourists. Although the islands
were visited by Christopher Columbus on his
second voyage in 1493 when he claimed them
for Spain, in the years that followed many other
European powers also claimed them, including
Britain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark
but it was Denmark, in 1672 that first built
by Kenneth Graham
settlements there. The islands remained Danish-
owned until after WW1 during which time the
United States recognized their location as being
strategically valuable to them and so negotiated
buying them from the Danish in 1917 for US$25
million in Gold (2017 equivalent of US$550).
Located in the Atlantic Ocean 40 miles east of
Puerto Rico, the USVI share an Archipelago with
the Puerto Rican and British Virgin Islands which
and are often thought of as Caribbean Island
destinations.