Getting Around Dominican Republic

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being at Punta Cana, going to Isla saona, is the must do activity tip.
a tourist bus travels from Bavaro beach, where i was, to Bahyahibe, and there, a small launch boat, takes you to the island.
all the way tipical south american scenes to snapshot and really a trip to remember.
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to travel around DR yu have to use organised tours.
several options are offered to yu when yu arrive at the resort, and everyday they take yu to visit a town or other points of interest.
of course those tours are taken by bus in land or by boat if u choose to go to an island with other tourists. amazing tours and wonderfull sites that u can visit, if you go there not only for the resting thing.

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For being such a small country, we do have a lot of international airports that connect us with a lot of cities in Europe, North, Central and South America and the Caribbean either by regular flights or charter services.

- Aeropuerto Internacional Las Américas (SDQ) in Santo Domingo.
- Aeropuerto Internacional del Cibao (STI) in Santiago.
- Aeropuerto Internacional de Gregorio Luperón (POP): in Sosúa, Puerto Plata province.
- Aeropuerto Internacional de Punta Cana (PUJ)
- Aeropuerto Internacional de La Romana (LRM).
- Aeropuerto Internacional El Catey (AZS) in Samaná.
- Aeropuerto Internacional La Isabela in Santo Domingo.
- Aeropuerto Internacional Arroyo Barril (EPS) in Samaná.

For those who want to see Las Cascadas del Limon: from the village El Limon you can get to the waterfall by walk, but I strongly recommend to take horses (they are rather small) with the native guide. It takes about 30 minutes to get there.

The horses will help you to pass the greater lenght of the distance, but at the end you will have to walk by your own.
Views you will se on your way and the and a bath you will take when you reach the waterfall will recompense all the efforts...

I traveled to Dominican Republic by plane. When we landed (at the Punta Caña International Airport), we walked through the airplanes to the main building. I must say that I was surprised at the sight of the airport - the roof is made of palm trees leaves and there are no walls in some spaces, such as the lounge. Apart from this, we collected our luggage - all luggage were orderly displayed on the floor and each passenger picked his. At this point there are people trying to help you carry the luggage in order to receive a tip.

On our way back to Portugal, we waited for our flight at the lounge (the flight was late). There are no screens showing the flights. They announce them loud in (bad) English. Sometimes it occurred to me that I might my “call"!

One of the best ways to access some beaches, do some diving or visit some other spot is by boat.

There are several kinds of boat in Dominican Republic, particularly on the organized tours. I made 3 boat trips: all different from each other, varying from an almost artesian boat to a bigger one that transported lots of people on two decks.

I got the idea that is easy to find locals with motor boats that for some euros or dollars will “drive” you around.

When sailing/traveling by boat don't forget to use a very high spf.

Most resorts are far from the airport. And most travel packages already included the transfer from the airport to the resort, usually in a comfortable air-conditioned van or bus.

For traveling around during the stay, we also used some kind of buses: one was very touristy and bright coloured (see the photo) and there was merengue playing loudly - this was an organized tour.

Some other day we decided to visit a local city (actually the capital city of San Juan Province, which is Higuey) and used public transportation. Some say that usually it isn’t recommended to leave the resort on your own, but we had no problem at all. Public buses are very cheap, but take a long time to get to destination as there seems to be no rush or stress in local people to be in schedule. It is all much laid back, which feels so good on holiday time.

Caribe Tours and Metro are the biggest bus lines that travel across the country. They both have air conditioned, comfortable buses. They used to serve wafers and coffee before but I don't know if they still do nowadays. Competitive prices.

Some routes will make a few stops on the places where most people travel to.

There are more "informal" buses, minibuses, that travel back and forth between most cities. They're cheaper than Caribe Tours and Metro but they're not as comfortable. There's 2 kinds of these: those who are "express" and those who will stop wherever a passenger winks at them to stop or wherever someone is getting off. Those minibuses have a guy that stands on the exit, called "cobrador" and his job is to collect the fare. On the stop-basically-everywhere minibuses they'll hang half his body outside the door and yell the route they're traveling. They signal the driver by knocking on the bus once or twice.