Flying to your Destination

For a lot of our Yacht Charter destinations, flying will be necessary to start your trip. So here are some tips and useful information that might help.

If you are flying to your charter destination from the US mainland or other Caribbean location, you can fly into St. Thomas USVI (STT) and then take another flight on a commuter aircraft to Beef Island Airport on Tortola (EIS) or you can take a local ferry. American Airlines, Spirit Air and others fly directly into St.

Thomas from many mainland destinations and from Puerto Rico (SJU). You can fly from Puerto Rico to Beef Island in Tortola on American Eagle and other smaller carriers Like Cape Air.

You can also get to West End or Road Town in Tortola by Ferry from either St. Thomas Harbor or from Red Hook on the East side. The ferry ride takes about 30 to 45 minutes and tickets are in the area of $40-50 US Dollars. Click here for the ferry schedules.

If you are chartering a crewed yacht in a party of 6 or fewer guests, you can arrange to have the yacht pick you up in St. Thomas or other location in the US Virgins. If you have a party of 7 guests or more you will need to board from a BVI location. West End is preferred by many due to it’s proximity – it’s only about a 20 minute ride from Red Hook, St. Thomas.

There are many direct flights from the Mainland US in to St. Martin (SXM) and also from the US and UK into Antigua. The popular island of St. Bart has a small airport for local carriers and there is a shuttle service from St. Martin. There is also a ferry from St. Martin to St. Bart. Click here for more ferry details.

Best way to get to the Grenadines is by flying into St. Lucia (SLU) that has a large international airport accessible from most major US airports and also from the UK. You can either pick up your yacht in St. Lucia or take an ongoing local carrier to St. Vincent (SVD) for a pick up which is closer to the actual Grenadines Islands but the facilities are not as nice as St. Lucia. You will however, “lose” a day of your charter as you cruise South past St. Vincent.

Other small airports are located in Canouan (CIW) and also Grenada (GND), both these are accessible from Barbados that has direct flights from the US and from the UK.

If you are chartering in the Greek Islands, Athens will be your first stop, from there you can fly on to other of the smaller Aegean Islands like Rhodes, Samos, Mykonos, Kos and many others that have airports. Aegean Air is a modern very efficient carrier that has service from many European cities.

Croatia has two major airports one in Split and the other close to Dubrovnik, if your charter vessel is leaving from Montenegro, use Dubrovnik airport or check out the new airport in Tivat, Montenegro.

Italy of course has a great variety of charter destinations and many airports that will situate you close to wherever you choose to start your charter from.  For example if you are chartering in Sicily, you have choices, Palermo, Reggio di Calabria (on the mainland across the straits of Messina) and also Catania which is close to the Etna Volcano and to lovely Taormina.  For the Amalfi Coast, fly into Napoli. For the Cinque Terre, fly into Genoa. For Sardinia, fly into Olbia.