Make the most of your trip to the unspoiled British Virgin Islands with our guide to what not to miss. Words Karla Zimmerman in Lonely Planet US & British Virgin Islands

To make the most of your time in the British Virgin Islands, split your holiday between mountainous Tortola and prosperous Virgin Gorda, and day trip to smaller islands by public ferry or charter boat.

Road Town makes a fine base for exploring Tortola if you want easy access to sophisticated eateries, pubs and boats. Fan out from there to inspect the island’s beaches, such as Apple Bay, home to a world-famous, ramshackle surfer’s bar, and Cane Garden Bay, the island’s live music spot.
To escape Tortola’s crowds, head to Jost Van Dyke for the day. Fewer than 200 people live on the jovial little island, where yachters and rock stars like to drop by for drinks. Who can blame them? Jost is an unspoiled oasis of green hills and blinding white sand. It even has a signature drink: the rum-bombed Painkiller. Ferries ply the route often from Tortola’s West End.

From central Road Town, it’s also easy to hop over to your next base on Virgin Gorda. Spanish Town is the gateway from which you can poke around the boulder-studded Baths, view-worthy Gorda Peak and other national parks. Sea dogs can hail water taxis around North Sound to sail, kitesurf and drink with the yachtsfolk. It’s also possible to daytrip to Anegada from Spanish Town. The sleepy atoll might as well be from another planet compared to its BVI brethren: giant rock iguanas hide under blooming cacti and hulking lobsters grill on beach barbecues.
Spanish Town is also a great jumping-off point for sailing expeditions to the Out Islands, too. Beauties such as Ginger Island, The Dogs and Fallen Jerusalem float nearby – uninhabited spots with nothing but beaches and blue sea.

BVI must-sees

Diving the RMS Rhone
The RMS Rhone is one of the most famous shipwreck dives in the Caribbean. The twin-masted vessel sank off Salt Island’s coast during a hurricane in 1867. Now a national park, the steamer’s remains are extensive and have become an exotic habitat for marine life. Eels and squid swim by a setting that couldn’t be more classic – so classic, in fact, that Hollywood has used it for numerous films, such as The Deep.

Beaches
You don’t have to be hit on the head with a coconut to know that beaches are a major highlight of the Virgins: secluded beaches, family beaches and miles of sand for sunset walks. Famed White Bay on Jost Van Dyke gets its name from its crazy white sand. Tortola has so many beaches it had to start repeating names – see Long Bay on the east and west.

The Baths
The BVI’s most popular tourist attraction, the Baths on Virgin Gorda is a sublime jumbled collection of sky-high granite boulders by the sea. The rocks – volcanic lava from up to 70 million years ago, according to some estimates – form a series of grottoes that fill with water and shafts of kaleidoscopic sunlight. You can snorkel around, or take the trail thorugh them in which you’ll slosh thorough tidal pools, squeeze into impossibly narrow passages, and then drop out onto a sugar-sand beach.

Jost Van Dyke
This island, north-west of Tortola, has developed a reputation that far exceeds its size – and a lot of that is due to a local musician named Foxy Callwood and his legendary namesake bar. Even though folks such as Keith Richards drop by for a drink, Jost remains an unspoiled oasis. There’s a small clutch of restaurants, beach bars and guesthouses, but blissfully nothing else. In fact, Main Street here is a beach.

Sailing
Endowed with steady trade winds, tame currents and hundreds of protected bays, the Virgin Islands are a sailor’s fantasyland. Many visitors come expressly to hoist a jib and dawdle among the 90-plus isles and cays, trying to determine which one serves the best cocktail. Tortola is the launching pad, known as the charter boat capital of the world, so it’s easy to get geared up.

Island music
The Virgins know how to throw a party, and that party has a soundtrack. Full moon celebrations rock Tortola each month as the sun sets. The fungi music begins at Aragorn’s Studio, where band members lay down a beat for stilt-walkers and and fire jugglers. And every island hosts a big carnival, usually around Easter or Christmas, with bands and calypso competitions.

Anegada lobster
Every restaurant on the far-flung island of Anegada serves the massive crustaceans, usually grilled on the beach in a converted oil drum and spiced with the chef’s secret seasonings. The critters are plucked fresh from the surrounding waters; many eateries let you go down to the traps and choose your own quarry. And when the dish arrives at your beachside table, as the sun wanes amber and yachts sway in the bay, you’ll know you’re living the good life.
Windsurfing Tortola

While the windsurfing and surfing scenes on Tortola are no secret – the blue water is always warm, and waves pack a notable punch – the beaches retain the feel of a lazy outpost. They’re all dramatic strands and the foot of mountains, and you don’t have to be a surfer yourself to appreciate them – just grab a cold drink, spread a towel on the sand and watch the line-up as reggae music floats in from the inevitable beach bar. Trellis Bay, Josiah’s Bay and Apple Bay are just a few of the island’s hot spots.

Events
The area around Spanish Town’s yacht harbour fills with mocko jumbies (costumed stilt walkers representing spirits of the dead), fungi bands, a food fair and parades during Virgin Gorda Easter Festival, held Friday to Sunday during Easter, usually late March or April. Also in April is the BVI Spring Regatta, which is one of the Caribbean’s biggest parties. It features seven days of small- and large-craft races and provides a time-honoured excuse to swill beer, sip rum and listen to live music.

This extract is adapted from Lonely Planet US & British Virgin Islands © Lonely Planet 2012. lonelyplanet.com