Punta Cana

The Dominican Republic plays a different game from most Caribbean islands. Where Barbados and St. Lucia compete on boutique charm, and the Caymans on ultra-luxury polish, the Dominican Republic competes on scale — and wins comprehensively. Punta Cana and Bávaro Beach together constitute the largest concentration of all-inclusive resort beds in the entire Caribbean: roughly 65,000 rooms between the two adjoining zones, from the Hard Rock Café Hotel and Casino (2,000+ rooms, swim-out suites, a guitar-shaped pool) to the whisper-quiet adults sanctuaries of Zoëtry Agua and Amanera, where a night's stay will exceed USD $2,000 and the privacy is absolute.

Bávaro Beach is the engine — 30 kilometres of continuous white sand beach on the island's east coast, backed by coconut palms and fronted by a protecting reef that keeps the water calm despite the Atlantic exposure. The beach itself is legitimately beautiful: wide, flat, and the colour of shallow tropical water at its best. The coral reef offshore provides snorkelling for beach-accessible guests and a barrier that makes the swim safe. This combination of long beach, protected water, and massive resort choice explains why Punta Cana is the Caribbean's single most-visited destination by air arrivals.

But the Dominican Republic is much larger than Punta Cana. Samaná Peninsula, 4 hours northwest, is where humpback whales arrive between January and March to breed in the warm, sheltered waters of Samaná Bay — one of the most important humpback breeding grounds in the Atlantic, and the best whale-watching in the Caribbean by a significant margin. The whales breach, slap, and sing in water shallow enough to see them clearly from a small boat 100 metres away.

Casa de Campo in La Romana is the Dominican Republic's equivalent of the Caymans' Ritz-Carlton — and then significantly more. A 7,000-acre luxury resort complex on the island's southeast coast with three world-class golf courses (Teeth of the Dog, repeatedly named best golf course in the Caribbean), a marina full of superyachts, a shooting range, a polo field, and the designed-from-scratch artist village of Altos de Chavón perched on a cliff above the Chavón River. The amphitheatre at Altos de Chavón (opened by Frank Sinatra in 1982) still hosts international concerts.

Santo Domingo — the country's capital on the south coast — is the oldest European city in the Americas. Columbus arrived in 1492; the Zona Colonial (UNESCO World Heritage Site) contains the first cathedral, first university, first hospital, and first paved streets in the New World. An afternoon in the Zona Colonial reframes everything else in the Caribbean: it is where American and Caribbean history actually began.

Amanera at Playa Grande on the north coast is a 25-casita cliffside resort above a pristine beach that represents the Dominican Republic's highest luxury register — an entirely different offer from the all-inclusive corridor 3 hours south.