SURFING IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
While searching for cool surf spots, I came across the Pacific coast of the Dominican Republic and immediately fell in love. Tropical beaches, wild sea, and palm trees, palm trees, palm trees. I think surf spots always have a great vibe, even if we're not the most talented surfers ourselves.
The journey
With Air Canada, I found good flights from Frankfurt via Canada to Puerto Plata , the airport in the north of the Dominican Republic. Upon arrival in Puerto Plata, we arranged a driver through our first hotel, the El Encuentro Surf Lodge . It was a bit difficult to arrange a child seat on site, but after a few emails back and forth, it was finally possible. Child seats in cars are extremely uncommon in the Dominican Republic! We generally didn't drive ourselves during the entire trip, but instead arranged for a driver through the hotel to take us from A to B and asked for a child seat in advance. This always worked out perfectly.
The ideal travel time
The ideal time to travel to the north of the Dominican Republic is February to April . We were there for two weeks at the beginning of March: one week in El Encuentro Beach, a small surfing spot near Cabarete, and one week on the Samana Peninsula in Las Terrenas (more on that in my post BEACH PARADISE SAMANA ).
Our hotel – a real surfer’s paradise
El Encuentro Surf Lodge was our first hotel. We stayed in one of the brand-new beach bungalows. These rooms are part of the hotel, but are a bit off the beaten track, but are on the beach in a small complex with its own pool. You can order breakfast directly to your room via WhatsApp. We thought it was fantastic.
What can you do in El Encuentro?
Every morning we walked the 20 meters to the beach and explored the rest of the way by bike, which we could rent at the hotel. Just a few meters away is the surfing beach with a small kiosk and two surf schools. There's only one restaurant in the vicinity of the hotel, Chez Arsenio. We loved this isolation for a week! We also ate at Fresh Fresh in Cabarete once. The restaurant was great, but we didn't like Cabarete itself at all. It was far too loud and far too crowded.
TRAVEL BUDGET
We paid about €600 per person for our flights to Puerto Plata. Even though Levi was still 1 year and 11 months old, we still booked him a seat for the 15-hour flight. The hotels cost a total of about €1,200 (6 days at El Encuentro Surf Lodge, 6 days at La Maison Las Terrenas), including breakfast. (On top of that, there are additional costs for transfers, additional meals, and excursions/activities.)