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› Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic –
Endless Shores
$1,990 / person
Trip Highlights
Flight
3 Nights
UNESCO
Day Tour
Waterfront
4 Nights
Day Tour
Boat Tour
Island
Flight
Day by Day
Your Full Itinerary
Board your flight to Las Américas International Airport (SDQ) in Santo Domingo — the capital of the Dominican Republic and the oldest continuously inhabited European city in the Americas. Direct flights operate from New York (JFK), Miami, Atlanta, and other major US hubs.
Your Santo Domingo Hotel · 3 Nights
A beautifully renovated colonial-style property steps from Santo Domingo’s most important historic monuments in the UNESCO-listed Zona Colonial. The hotel seamlessly blends 16th-century stone architecture with contemporary comforts — an ideal base from which to explore the birthplace of the Americas on foot.
Check into your hotel in the heart of the Zona Colonial and step outside onto streets that Columbus himself walked over 500 years ago. Spend the afternoon exploring freely — this is a city best discovered at your own pace. As evening falls, join the locals on the Malecón — Santo Domingo’s sweeping oceanfront promenade — where food vendors, musicians, and the warm Caribbean breeze make for one of the most convivial evenings in the Caribbean.
Included · Full Morning Tour
Begin at the Cathedral of Santa María la Menor — the oldest cathedral in the Americas, consecrated in 1541, where Christopher Columbus’s remains were once interred. Walk cobblestoned Calle El Conde to the magnificent Alcázar de Colón — the 16th-century palace of Columbus’s son Diego, now a museum of Renaissance art and colonial artefacts — and the Fortaleza Ozama, the oldest European military fortress in the New World. The Zona Colonial’s 300 hectares of five-century-old limestone architecture earned UNESCO World Heritage status in 1990 for good reason.
Just outside the city, Los Tres Ojos (“The Three Eyes”) is one of the Dominican Republic’s most dramatic natural wonders — a series of three interconnected underground limestone caverns, each containing a different-coloured lagoon: one saltwater, one brackish, and one freshwater. A fourth “eye” is reached by raft across an underground lake. The caves were sacred to the Taíno people for centuries, and their stalactite-hung ceilings and luminous turquoise water make for an utterly surreal morning.
A panoramic drive past Santo Domingo’s most emblematic landmarks — the Plaza de la Cultura (home to the National Museum of Natural History and the National Theatre), the glittering Malecón seafront, the Independence Park with its Altar de la Patria, and the National Pantheon — a 1747 Jesuit church turned national mausoleum guarded by an eternal flame and marble busts of the Dominican Republic’s founding fathers.
A charming boutique beach hotel set directly on the sands of Playa Las Ballenas — Las Terrenas’ most beautiful and unspoilt beach. The Alisei combines Italian-Caribbean design with a genuinely relaxed atmosphere: a beachfront pool, an excellent seafood restaurant, and grounds that open directly onto the turquoise Atlantic. Las Terrenas has a distinct French-Dominican character — part Caribbean beach town, part European seaside village — and the Alisei captures both perfectly.
Transfer from Santo Domingo through the lush mountains of the Samaná Peninsula, with extraordinary views of the Caribbean unfolding as you descend to the coast. Check into your hotel and head straight to Playa Cosón — a 10-kilometre arc of completely undeveloped white sand and translucent turquoise water that consistently ranks among the top five beaches in the entire Caribbean. Bring cash for the beach vendors selling fresh coconuts and grilled lobster directly from the shore.
Evening
Las Terrenas’s beach strip is one of the Caribbean’s most vibrant — a happy collision of Dominican bachata bars, French boulangeries, Italian gelato shops, and open-air seafood restaurants. Walk the Pueblo de los Pescadores (Fishermen’s Village) boardwalk for rum cocktails and fresh catch, then find a table at one of the terrace restaurants as the warm Atlantic breeze carries the sound of music across the bay.
Ride on horseback through the tropical jungle of the Samaná Peninsula’s interior — past cocoa and coffee plantations, banana groves, and clusters of royal palm — to the extraordinary El Limón waterfall, plunging 52 metres in a single curtain of cold freshwater into a natural pool surrounded by dripping rainforest. Swimming in the pool beneath the falls — with the mist and the sound of the jungle all around — is one of the finest experiences the Dominican Republic has to offer.
Spend the afternoon at Playa Bonita — a quieter, more intimate beach than Cosón, framed by coconut palms leaning over the water at photogenic angles. The water is calm, warm, and clear enough to see the sandy bottom at chest depth. A handful of excellent beachside restaurants serve the freshest grilled fish in the Dominican Republic — order the catch of the day with tostones and a cold Presidente beer.
Board a speedboat from Samaná for the UNESCO-protected Los Haitises National Park — one of the Caribbean’s most extraordinary ecosystems. Navigate through a labyrinthine network of mangrove channels, past hundreds of mushroom-shaped limestone mogotes rising from the bay, to sea caves covered in 500-year-old Taíno petroglyphs. The park is home to over 100 bird species including the brown pelican, the roseate spoonbill, and the magnificent frigatebird, which nests in the mangroves in enormous colonies. Look for West Indian manatees gliding silently through the channels below the boat.
Continue by boat to Cayo Levantado — a tiny jungle-topped island in the middle of Samaná Bay, made famous as the original “Bacardi Island” used in Caribbean rum advertising for decades. With its white-sand beaches, swaying palm trees, and impossibly blue surrounding water, Cayo Levantado is as close to the platonic ideal of a tropical island as anywhere on earth. Swim, snorkel, or simply sit on the beach and marvel at the fact that a place this beautiful actually exists.
No payment today. A Voyenza travel expert will contact you to discuss your preferred dates.
No payment today. A Voyenza travel expert will contact you to discuss your preferred dates.
