Celebrate St. Croix: Driving in the Left Lane
- Kelly Pugh
- 48 minutes ago
- 5 min read
There’s something about driving across St. Croix that never really gets old for me. The way the views shift from town to hills to coastline. The little roadside spots you pass without thinking. The sense that even a familiar drive still has stories hiding in it.
That’s why I got genuinely excited when I learned about a new experience called “Driving in the Left Lane: Stories from Sunny St. Croix Island.” It’s a GPS-guided audio tour created by Gyasi Clarke, a singer, songwriter, performer, and creative who has found a way to turn a simple cross-island drive into something deeper, more personal, and honestly, pretty magical.
This isn’t just directions in your ear. It’s St. Croix being told back to you through history, music, memory, and local perspective.
A Drive That Becomes a Story
The tour guides you along a scenic 22.37-mile route from the Christiansted Bypass Overlook all the way to Frederiksted Beach. As you drive, your phone uses GPS to trigger different audio segments at 74 major points along the way. Over about 45 minutes to an hour (or longer if you stop and explore), the island starts talking to you.
Gyasi’s voice walks you through the places you’re already seeing but instead of just pointing them out, he layers them with meaning. You hear about pivotal moments in St. Croix’s history, like the 1878 Fireburn Rebellion. You pass historic forts. You get reminders of long-standing favorites like Armstrong’s Ice Cream, which has been serving the community for over a century.
It’s the kind of experience that makes you realize how much history, culture, and everyday life exist in the same space. A beach isn’t just a beach. A road isn’t just a road. A building isn’t just a building. They all carry stories.
Why “Driving in the Left Lane” Matters
The title itself is one of my favorite parts.
“Driving in the Left Lane” is both literal and symbolic. Yes, we drive on the left here. But Gyasi describes it as a metaphor too, a reflection of how life moves on St. Croix. We move at our own pace. We don’t always rush. We notice things. We let conversations unfold. We give space for memory, humor, and reflection.
And that’s exactly how this tour feels.
It’s not trying to cram facts at you. It doesn’t feel like a textbook. It feels like someone riding along, pointing things out, telling stories, laughing a little, and occasionally getting quiet when something deserves it.
Built with Care (and a Lot of Miles)
One of the things I really admire about this project is how personal it is.
The idea came from Gyasi’s mother, who runs a cultural experience business on the island. What started as a suggestion slowly turned into a three-year project. Gyasi didn’t come from an audio-tour background. His training was in IT and music. But instead of letting that stop him, he leaned into it.
He researched St. Croix’s history deeply. He wrote the entire script himself. He recorded all the narration in his home studio over four long days. And then came the testing.
He’s said he lost count of how many times he drove from Christiansted to Frederiksted just to make sure every story triggered at the right moment. That alone tells you something about the care behind this. This wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t outsourced. It was built through repetition, curiosity, and a real desire to get it right.
Layers of Island Life
What makes “Driving in the Left Lane” so special is how layered it is.
You’ll hear about the seven flags that have flown over St. Croix. You’ll learn pieces of colonial history, resistance, and resilience. You’ll catch moments of playful local slang. You’ll be pointed toward places people have loved for generations.
But then Gyasi weaves in pieces of his own life too.
He points out the baseball field where he hit his first home run. He shares personal reflections. He even integrates his own original music into the experience, including his song “Positive Is How I Live,” which becomes part of the soundtrack of the drive.
That mix of public history and private memory gives the tour its heart. It doesn’t feel distant. It feels lived-in.
A Tour That’s Not Just for “New” Eyes
What I really appreciate is that this tour wasn’t made only for people seeing St. Croix for the first time.
Gyasi has said that even if you’ve driven these roads your whole life, you may hear stories you’ve never known.
And I believe that.
We get used to places. We pass them every day. We stop asking questions. A project like this gently invites curiosity back in. It asks you to listen differently. To look again. To realize that familiarity doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to learn.
It’s just as much about rediscovery as it is discovery.
Ending Where the Sun Goes Down
The tour ends in Frederiksted, a place already known for its sunsets. Gyasi suggests starting about two hours before sunset, giving yourself time to enjoy the stops, absorb the stories, and arrive in time for that soft, glowing close to the day.
I love that detail. It turns the experience into a kind of slow arc, from overlook to ocean, from story to reflection, from movement to stillness.
It feels intentional. Like a reminder that the island isn’t meant to be rushed through.
Why I Love That This Exists
What stands out to me most about “Driving in the Left Lane” is that it doesn’t try to package St. Croix into something neat or simple. It allows the island to be layered. Complicated. Musical. Historical. Funny. Heavy. Light. Personal.
It honors the idea that this place isn’t one story, it’s many, overlapping all the time.
And I think that’s something worth celebrating.
Projects like this help preserve memory. They make history approachable. They create new ways to connect with familiar spaces. They invite conversation between generations, between people, between past and present.
They remind us that culture isn’t only in museums or books. It’s in voices. In music. In drives you’ve taken a hundred times. In the way someone tells you, “Look at that,” and suddenly you actually do.
A Gentle Invitation
If you find yourself behind the wheel sometime soon, I’d encourage you to experience St. Croix this way, not as a commute, but as a story.
“Driving in the Left Lane” is available on the VoiceMap app. It starts at the Christiansted Bypass Overlook and ends in Frederiksted. All you really need is a little time, an open mind, and a willingness to listen.
And if you try it, I’d honestly love to hear what stood out to you. A story you didn’t know. A place you now see differently. A memory it brought back. These are the kinds of projects that grow richer when people share what they felt along the way.
Because in the end, driving in the left lane isn’t really about the road.
It’s about paying attention.
The tour is best started a couple of hours before sunset and is available on the VoiceMap app if you want to plan the drive for yourself.
I love sharing the stories and experiences that make St. Croix so special. If this post sparked your curiosity or brought back a favorite memory, I’d love to hear from you. And if you ever want to connect, ask questions, or talk more about life on the island, you can always reach out to me anytime.
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