The Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo. The first cathedral, the first university, the first paved street in the Americas — and not a museum but a lived-in quarter where the sixteenth-century buildings have bars on their roofs. Walk Calle Las Damas at dusk.
Humpback whales at Samaná. Between mid-January and mid-March some two thousand humpbacks come into Samaná Bay to calve and breed, one of the largest gatherings anywhere. Boats go out from the town; the regulations on approach distance are strict and worth respecting.
Kiteboarding at Cabarete. The wind builds every afternoon like clockwork and the bay fills with kites. Even if you never get on a board, the beach at four o'clock is a spectacle.
Pico Duarte. At 3,098 metres, the highest mountain in the Caribbean — a two- or three-day walk through pine forest from Jarabacoa, cold at night, and a genuine surprise on an island people associate with beaches.
Bahía de las Águilas. Eight kilometres of white sand with nothing built on it, inside a national park at the far south-western corner. Getting there takes a boat or a bad road, which is exactly why it is still like that.
The diving at Bayahibe. Wrecks, walls and the protected reefs of the Parque Nacional del Este, with the caves and Taíno pictographs on Saona thrown in.
Merengue and bachata. Both were born here, and both are everywhere — from the colmado on the corner with its speaker in the doorway to the clubs of Santiago. This is the most reliable pleasure in the country and it is free.