DOMINICAN REPUBLIC · CARIBBEAN
The clear water is just the start.
Catamarans to Saona Island, buggies out to Macao, the 27 waterfalls at Damajagua and the old stone streets of Santo Domingo. The beaches everyone comes for, and the island most people never leave the resort to find.
Only here
Three days that are pure Dominican Republic.
A snorkel cruise turns up in every Caribbean brochure. A palm sandbar in a national park, twenty-seven waterfalls you jump and slide down, and rum and cacao grown in the hills behind the coast belong to this island.
Island day
Saona Island
Saona sits inside Parque Nacional del Este, an hour down the coast and a boat ride offshore. The draw is the piscina natural, a waist-deep sandbar a kilometre out to sea where the catamarans raft up, and a palm beach with no road in. The Dominican day on the water everyone flies home talking about.
- 1 Punta Cana: Catamaran Boat to Saona Island with Buffet Lunch
- 2 Saona Island Day Trip From Punta Cana with Lunch and Open Bar
- 3 Small Group: Saona Island Full Day Tour
Jump and slide
The 27 Waterfalls
In the hills behind Puerto Plata, the Damajagua river has cut twenty-seven limestone pools and chutes. You climb up through the canyon in a helmet and life jacket, then come back down the fast way: jumping off ledges and sliding the water-polished rock into the pools below. There is nothing else quite like it in the Caribbean.
- 1 Damajagua The 7 waterfalls excursion – Amber Cove & Taino bay
- 2 Damajagua Waterfalls Adrenalin Adventure Amber Cove-Taino Bay
- 3 Damajagua Waterfalls for Cruise Ship Passengers
Hills behind the coast
Rum, Cacao and Coffee
The Dominican Republic is one of the world's great rum and cacao nations, and the campo behind the beaches is where it grows. Farm visits walk you through the cane and the cocoa, roast and grind the beans by hand, and finish over a tasting of aged rum, raw chocolate and mountain coffee.
- 1 4×4 Dominican Adventure with Chocolate and Coffee Tasting
- 2 4×4 ATV Experience, Water Cave, Chocolate and Coffee Tasting
- 3 Buggy Adventure Tour with Chocolate and Coffee in Punta Cana
The one everyone books
The day most trips are built around.
If you only get off the resort for one day in the Dominican Republic, this is the day most people choose.
The classics
The Dominican Republic's Most Popular Tours
Saona Island, the catamaran cruises, the Macao buggies and the Damajagua falls. The days most people come to the DR to do.
Where to begin
The days a Dominican trip is built around.
Saona and the snorkel cruises, the buggies and the falls, the cenotes and the colonial city. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to do Saona Island.
Saona is the day everyone asks about, and there is more than one way to reach it. An hour by road to the boats, then offshore by catamaran, speedboat, or both, depending on how much beach time and how much party you want.
Santo Domingo
The first city of the new world.
Three hours west of the beaches, the Zona Colonial is the oldest European city in the Americas, laid out in 1498. Cobbled streets run past the first cathedral and the palace of Columbus’s son, then open onto Los Tres Ojos, a chain of limestone caverns flooded an unreal turquoise. The other half of the country, in a single long day.
Read the guide: day trips to Santo Domingo →Freshwater
Turquoise water, underground.
The limestone under the east coast is full of cenotes: sinkholes and flooded caves where the water turns an impossible blue. Hoyo Azul at Scape Park is the famous one, a cobalt pool at the foot of a cliff, but the tours run on through Cueva Taina and the lagoons around the adventure parks. Cool, clear, and a world away from the surf.
See the cenote and cave tours →By sea
The coast is better from the water.
Most of the Dominican shore is reef, and the best of it sits offshore. Catamarans run out daily from Bávaro and Bayahibe: snorkel stops over the coral, a natural pool to wade in, an open bar and a sound system, and the long easy sail back as the light drops. The cruise everyone remembers.
Catamaran & snorkel cruises →Mud and dust
Off the tarmac, into the campo.
The buggy and ATV runs are the inland half of a Punta Cana trip: a convoy off the resort strip and into the campo, splashing through mud holes and red-dirt cane roads to a Dominican farm, a cacao stop, a cigar bench and a cenote swim. Loud, filthy, and the most fun a lot of people have all week.
- 1 Adventure Bundle: Monkeyland, Ziplines & Buggies Punta Cana
- 2 Punta Cana Zipline Adventure with Buggies and Horseback Riding
- 3 Punta Cana Dune Buggy Adventure and Amazing Water Cave
By pace
Pick your day, by speed.
The DR runs both ends of the dial. A slow day of rum, beach and warm water, a classic day of snorkel boats and buggies, or a full-throttle day of zip lines, parasails and open-bar booze cruises.
Take it slow
Beach, rum and shade.A countryside tasting of rum, cacao and coffee, a long lunch, and the rest of the day at water level with nowhere to be.
Classic day out
Boats, reefs and trails.Snorkel cruises over the coral, buggies through the campo, a horse along the tide line. The middle of the dial, where most days land.
Full throttle
Loud, fast and wet.Booze-cruise party boats with the music up, parasails off the sand, zip lines through the canopy and a night that ends at Coco Bongo.
On horseback
Criollo horses, empty sand.
The Dominican criollo is a small, sure-footed island horse, and the riding here runs along the tide line and back through the coconut groves and the cane. Most rides are an easy walk-and-trot suited to first-timers, finishing at a river mouth or a quiet stretch of coast the buggies never reach.
See all 87 horseback rides →By place
The DR, beyond the beach strip.
Punta Cana for the sand and the buggies. Bayahibe for the boats to Saona. La Romana for the marina and the caves. Saona for the sandbar. Santo Domingo for the old city. Los Haitises for the mangroves.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Catamaran if you want the reef. Buggy if you want the campo. Horse if you want the sand. Waterfalls, cenotes, snorkel gear or an open bar, the day bends to you.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend that gets you off the resort and onto the best of the island.
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