The largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands is St. Croix located
40 miles south of St. Thomas. Plantation ruins, reminiscent
of the days when St. Croix was a great producer of sugar, dot
the island. St. Croix has contrasting beauty, its not as
hilly as its neighbors in St John or St. Thomas.
Its northwest is covered by a lush rain forest, its
drier East End is spotted with cactus. The restored danish
port of Christiansted and the more Victorian-looking
Fredericksted are its main towns; Buck Island off the island's north-east shore, attracts many day visitors.
Unlike the bustling island-city of St. Thomas, St. Croix
lives at a slower pace and with a diverse economy, mixing tourism with light and heavy industry on rolling land that was once
covered with sugarcane fields.
With the influx of jobs, the city has grown dramatically
since the 1960s. Tourism began and boomed in the 1960s,
bringing visitors as well