When I was a child, my parents liked to haul the family across country to well-advertised beach vacation spots, and so I've seen the best of Florida and southern California, Hawaii and the French Riviera. My mother's travel plans, however, were always created on the premise that actual beach lounging wastes precious vacation time, so in between swimming with dolphins, souvenir shopping, dessert buffets, and posing for photos there was never a chance to do what I really wanted, which was to flop down onto the sand with a good book and extra sunblock and just be by my lazy self. Once I started traveling alone I could have taken things into my own hands, but somehow I always wound up landlocked—rather than the trusty trio of surf, sand, and sun, my trips seemed to involve nauseating bus rides at high velocity on the edges of precipitous cliffs and trekking through red dust to pick at palatial termite mounds. Exciting, yes, and edifying for the soul, but still no trip to the beach.
So going to a Dominican seaside resort for an extended weekend seemed like exactly the vacation I had, without realizing it, wanted and needed during the entirety of my adult life. I stepped onto a plane one morning out of the depths of a drizzly New York morning and a painless four hours later was discharged into a landscape brimming with glorious jungle greens, turquoise waters, and unclouded azure sky. I felt like a just-planted Dorothy in Oz, having left behind a dreary monochrome world of grey concrete and finding myself suddenly in front of a view so vibrantly hued I had the sensation of rediscovering the world in Technicolor. Read the full review and area guide »
Credit: Camille Bromley
Credit: Ashley Rodriguez
