PUNTA CANA · DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Coconut palms, turquoise shallows, islands offshore.
Saona and Catalina island days, catamaran cruises and buggy runs to a water cave. The beaches of Bávaro, the campo inland, and the colonial streets of Santo Domingo, a day trip away.
Only here
Three days you can’t have anywhere else.
Catamaran cruises and snorkel stops exist across the Caribbean. A starfish sandbar an hour offshore, a freshwater cave at the end of a buggy track, and a day deep in the campo belong to this corner of the Dominican Republic.
Out on the sandbar
Saona’s Natural Pool
Saona sits off the far southeast tip of the island, inside a national park where no resort is allowed to build. The boats stop first at the piscina natural, a sandbar a mile from any shore where the water sits waist-deep and warm and starfish rest on the bottom. You stand in the middle of the Caribbean with nothing above the surface but your own boat.
- 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
Mud and freshwater
The Water-Cave Run
Twenty minutes inland the resorts give way to red-dirt tracks through the cane and the palm. The buggy and ATV trails all aim at the same reward: a cenote, a freshwater cave where you climb down out of the heat and swim in cold blue water under the stalactites, before the track runs out at the surf of Macao Beach.
- 1 Punta Cana Dune Buggy Adventure and Amazing Water Cave
- 2 Half-Day Adventure 4×4 ATV, Water Cave and Dominican Culture
- 3 Half-Day Buggy Tour to Water Cave and Macao Beach
Into the campo
A Day in the Real DR
The countryside safari trades the beach for the working interior: a cacao farm where the chocolate starts as a pod, a coffee stop, a cane field, a Dominican family kitchen and a glass of mama juana. It is the day that explains the country the resorts sit on the edge of.
- 1 Half-Day Adventure 4×4 ATV, Water Cave and Dominican Culture
- 2 Half Day Dominican Republic Cultural Tour : Small Group
- 3 5 tours in 1 (Eco Farm/Horseback/City Tour/Buggy/Zipline)
Start here
The one trip most holidays are built around.
If you only book one thing before you fly, make it this. The day out more Punta Cana visitors plan around than any other.
The classics
Punta Cana's Most Popular Tours
Saona Island, the buggy water-caves, the catamaran cruises and the Santo Domingo run. The days most people fly in for.
Where to begin
The days a Punta Cana trip is built around.
Saona Island, the catamaran cruises, the buggy runs, the countryside safaris, the snorkel reefs and the colonial-city day trip. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
Out to the islands
Which island day?
The boats run to three very different places offshore. Saona for the palm-island postcard and the sandbar. Catalina for the clearest snorkelling and diving. Los Haitises for the mangroves, caves and birds. Pick by what you want the water to do.
The campo
The real country starts twenty minutes inland.
Behind the beach the land turns to red dirt, sugar cane and palm. The countryside safaris run out to cacao and coffee farms, a cigar roller, a Dominican family kitchen and a shot of mama juana. It is the half of the country the resorts never quite show you.
Read the guide: the best countryside safaris →On the water
Days that run on island time.
The catamaran day is the easy one. A slow sail along the Bávaro reef, an open bar, a snorkel stop over the coral and a natural pool to wade in before lunch. Some boats carry on to Saona, some just drift the coast and back.
See the catamaran cruises →The Coconut Coast
Forty miles of white sand and warm water.
Punta Cana is the easternmost tip of the Dominican Republic, where the Atlantic folds into the Caribbean along a reef-sheltered shore. The water stays bath-warm and turquoise the year round, the trade winds keep the palms moving, and the sand runs almost unbroken from Uvero Alto down to Cap Cana.
Cruises & boat trips →Day trip west
The oldest city in the Americas.
Three hours west, Santo Domingo’s Zona Colonial is where Europe first set down in the New World: the first cathedral, the first paved street, the fortress where Columbus’s son ruled. A long day out of Punta Cana, and the one that puts the whole country in context.
- 1 Full-Day Santo Domingo City Tour from Punta Cana
- 2 Day Trip to Santo Domingo from Punta Cana
- 3 Punta Cana: Santo Domingo Day Trip with Tickets and Lunch
By pace
Pick your day, by pace.
Punta Cana runs the whole range. A slow sail and a rum tasting when you want to do nothing, a buggy through the mud when you want a bit more, and a zip line or a dive when you want the jolt.
Take it slow
Open bar and island time.Catamaran cruises along the reef, a rum and chocolate tasting in the campo, and the long lunch on Saona’s sandbar.
Classic adventure
Mud, caves and horses.Buggies and ATVs through the cane to a freshwater cave, horseback rides down to the beach, and the 4x4 run out to Macao.
Full send
Off the platform.Zip lines over the canopy at Scape Park, parasails above Bávaro, and scuba dives and sea-scooters out on the reef.
The campo run
Through the cane and down to a cave.
The buggy day is Punta Cana’s dustiest classic. You take a two-seat dune buggy or an ATV off the tarmac and onto red-dirt tracks through sugar cane and palm, stop to climb down into a freshwater cave for a swim, and finish where the track meets the surf at Macao Beach. You come back filthy and grinning.
See all 264 dune buggy tours →By place
Beyond the resort, six ways.
Saona for the palm island and the sandbar. Catalina for the reef. Santo Domingo for the colonial streets. Samaná for the whales and the waterfall. Los Haitises for the mangroves. Scape Park for the Hoyo Azul blue hole.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Catamaran if you want the slow sail. Buggy if you want the mud. Snorkel if you want the reef. Horseback, zip line, party boat, or the long day inland.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Punta Cana? Here is a long weekend that hits the island, the mud and the campo without a wasted hour.
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