Saona by boat, Macao by buggy.
Catamarans out to the sandbar, dune buggies through the cane dust, a cave you swim into with roots hanging down, and the shuttle back to Bávaro before dinner. What each one is like, what it costs, where to book it.
Seven the resort desk will mark up.
One boat day, one morning covered in cane dust, one afternoon in the Colonial Zone. These are the ones travellers rebook the following year, and the ones the resort desk quietly marks up.
Punta Cana Zipline Adventure with Buggies and Horseback Riding
Punta Cana jungle adventure at Hacienda Tuko, with zipline, horseback riding, and dune buggies plus hotel pickup, lunch, and bottled water.
From $100 per person
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★ 4.5Easy winHalf-Day Buggy Tour to Water Cave and Macao BeachFrom $542,587 reviews
★ 5.0Small-group optionSmall-Group Cruising and Snorkeling Catamaran TourFrom $992,401 reviews
Sandbar first, island after.
Coach down to Bayahibe, catamaran across with the speakers on, an hour standing waist deep on the Piscina Natural where the starfish sit, then lunch under the palms on Saona itself. Speedboat home into the wind. It takes the whole day and nobody minds.
Which Saona day is yours?
Everyone leaves with the same photo of the sandbar; how you get there decides the rest of the day. Three ways to do it, and where you are staying usually picks for you.
The full crossing
The classic catamaran
8 hours · from $82 · 3,822 reviews
Hotel pickup before seven, the coach down through the cane to Bayahibe, then two hours under sail with rum in a plastic cup. Buffet on the beach, an afternoon in the shade, speedboat back. The version everybody pictures, and the one that fills first in February.
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Music all the way
The party boat
from $69 · 1,037 reviews
Same water, louder. A sand bar stop where the crew serve waist deep, merengue from the moment the engine starts, and a snorkel drift squeezed in between. Adults only on most of them. Not the trip for a hangover you already have.
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Less bus, more sea
The Bayahibe short cut
4 hours · from $57 · 261 reviews
Stay near La Romana or Dominicus and you skip the two-hour transfer entirely. Boats leave from the village pier, small groups, home by mid afternoon. The local move if your resort sits on the south coast rather than the east.
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The evening starts on the water.
Horses along the tide line while Bávaro goes pink, merengue on a deck somewhere off Cortecito, rum poured with no measure at all. Coco Bongo later for anyone who still has legs, and a taxi rank that never sleeps.
Cacao, coffee, then mamajuana.
The estates inland grind cacao by hand, roast small batches over wood, and finish you on a glass of mamajuana that rearranges the afternoon. Forty minutes from most resort gates and the coolest air you will breathe all week.
Cables, saddles, no tarmac.
Zip runs over the canopy at Anamuya, quiet trail horses along the sand at Macao, farm tracks where the only traffic is a motoconcho with three people on it. Wear shoes you can hose down afterwards.
Santo Domingo got here first.
Calle las Damas is the oldest paved street in the Americas and the cathedral at the end of it beat every other one in the hemisphere by a century. Three hours west of the east-coast hotels, and the only day on this list with no swimwear in it.
Pick your coast, then your day.
The east is buggies and boat days. Bayahibe is the short hop to Saona. Puerto Plata keeps the waterfalls and the cable car. Santo Domingo keeps the history.
Pick the kind of morning you want.
Twelve ways to spend a morning here, from a cave you swim through to a cacao farm with a hammock at the end of it. Every option behind each tile is priced and open for booking.
Three hours gets you across the island.
The coaches leave before six and the highway does the rest. Waterfalls you jump down, a cable car up Isabel de Torres, the Colonial Zone by lunchtime, and back at the resort gate in time for dinner.
Three days on the east coast.
A week here is usually four days by the pool and three you actually remember. These are the three, in the order that works around the shuttle times.
Day 1
Dust, then the cave
Buggy convoy out through the cane to Macao, a swim in the water cave with the roots hanging into it, a cold Presidente before the shuttle back. Do it early while the enthusiasm is fresh.
Start day one →
Day 2
The boat day
Catamaran out, sandbar stop, buffet under the palms on Saona, speedboat home. It eats the whole day and it is the photograph everyone shows when they get back.
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Day 3
The city, or the farm
West to the Colonial Zone for the cathedral and Calle las Damas, or inland to a cacao estate if the legs have had enough. Either one is the day nobody plans and everybody rates.
See the city trips →
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