I have a tile counter we decided after all the renovation money to wait for the counter of our dreams I used the metal trim it works well we wnt with cheap ceramic tile and they have chipped so I would suggest procelain tile BTW if you wash your counter the grout does not hold the bacteria any more than any other material. The only other thing you could do is wood do you have IKea in the VI they have a very affordable solid wood counter material , easy to install too.The red kitchen has the wood from Ikea in the next comment

red kitchen

I agree with using laminate for a budget friendly counter. When we bought our house 35 years ago, it had some tile, some laminate and some wood counters. The laminate was easy to take care of and looked brand new after almost 30 years of use. The butcher block and tile counters were nothing but trouble. I could have got a job as a grout cleaner tester because I tried them all. It was tons of work. The laminate counters never looked "fabulous" or whatever, but they did the job and were easy to take care of.

Laminate over tile any day. We installed laminate in our former home. It was a breeze to clean. Looked as good when we sold that house, 35 years later, as the day it was installed.

Another vote for laminate. Our BVI house still has its original from 1965! Survived both hurricanes. It got very dirty, but the maids somehow got it clean, after much scrubbing on my part.

We had 200 mph winds sustained for three hours, gusting to 225, with embedded tornados. Basically five acres of downed trees. Our snorkeling dock finally got repaired the day before Dorian hit!

Why is it turning it upside down? Anyway, that's the new roof, new screens, new shutters, new fan. The pressure drop caused all the canisters and unopened spices to pop open!

I have a black Daltile 12" rectified porcelain tile with epoxy grout and a Shluter (sp?) stainless steel edging product and we cook a lot. What that means is that I can set hot pots and pans and sheets right out of the oven anywhere, and we do.

I love it although I'm ready to re-do the grout. I believe there are other non-porous solutions out there now that weren't available 12 years ago. I don't think I'd like smaller tiles with even more grout lines, but that's the look of our kitchen, a bit more sleek.

Everyone asks if it's slate, which is the look I wanted without the work of natural stone, so that makes me happy.

Do what will make you happy!

I love my tile countertops and if they ever need replacing, I'll use it again. I agree with c9pilot - no worries about setting down hot things, no staining, no cuts if someone uses a knife to slice something on it instead of a cutting board. I think some of the new laminates look nice, but I really don't like worrying about someone setting something hot on them.

I am really sorry to hear about your home being destroyed in a hurricane, much less two. The resources on the islands are limited and very expensive. We take for granted here in the states being able to go to 3 or 4 home improvement centers before making our choices, I vole for laminate counter tops as well.