The Baths are the headline. There is nothing else like them in the Caribbean: house-sized granite boulders piled in the shallows at the south end of Virgin Gorda, forming a network of sea-filled grottoes and natural pools you can swim and clamber through. The trail south through the boulders to Devil's Bay is one of the best short walks in the West Indies, with ladders and rope-handles where the route gets tight.
Gorda Peak National Park is a 265-acre reserve in the middle of the island, with two well-graded trails to the 414-metre summit. The viewpoint at the top gives a panorama over most of the BVI. The Copper Mine National Park on the south-east coast preserves the ruins of a 19th-century Cornish copper mine in a striking cliff-top setting.
The beaches are exceptional even by BVI standards. Savannah Bay is a mile of empty white sand on the east coast, with snorkelling at the reef at the southern end. Spring Bay, just north of The Baths, is much quieter and has its own scaled-down granite boulders. Mahoe Bay is the protected cove at Mango Bay Resort.
North Sound is the principal sailing destination in the BVI — a wide, sheltered bay with the Bitter End Yacht Club, Saba Rock, Leverick Bay and the private resorts of Necker Island and Mosquito Island around its edge. It is reached by boat from Gun Creek at the end of the north road, or by ferry from Spanish Town.