Punta Cana

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Golden morning sunlight illuminates the white sand coast and leaning coconut palms of Punta Cana.

Punta Cana is a long, wind-brushed resort coast of white sand, where Atlantic and Caribbean water meet on the eastern edge of the Dominican Republic.

The place

Punta Cana sits on the far eastern coast of the Dominican Republic, the resort settlement of La Altagracia. Since 2006 it has formed the Verón–Punta Cana touristic district, under Higüey rather than as a city on its own. About 139,000 people live here, on ground only 28 metres above the sea. Beaches look out on the Atlantic to the north and the Caribbean to the south, a pale-sand shore. The provincial coastline runs about 100 kilometres and tends to stay mildly windy.

Northward the strand continues through Cabeza de Toro, Las Corales, El Cortecito and Bávaro, once separate beaches and now a single resort corridor. Higüey, the nearest city, lies about 45 kilometres inland, close to an hour by car. The airport is about 3 kilometres inland on the road linking Higüey and La Romana, so a first arrival is often a coach, not a town square. More than 50 large resorts line the destination. European firms, Spanish chains most of all, own all but two of them.

Daily life splits at the gate. Inside, the hours turn on pools, buffet lines and a guarded length of sand. Outside, Verón and the Higüey road are working towns: shared minibuses, small shops, churches and the kitchens that feed resort staff. Heat lasts most of the year and is strongest in late summer and autumn.

Its story

Punta Cana took its present name in 1970. Before that the point was known as Yauya, or Punta Borrachos, a little-developed stretch of La Altagracia with no resort coast at all. In the late 1960s a Dominican businessman, Frank Rainieri, then in his twenties, and Theodore Kheel, who practised law in New York and mediated labour disputes, joined other investors to buy a tract of 58 million square metres at the island's eastern end. Higüey, the nearest real city, was then a five-hour drive over poor roads.

Their opening project was small: the Punta Cana Club, a lodging for about 40 guests. In 1978 the Paris Mediterranean Club entered the Grupo Punta Cana venture and added a 350-room resort. In 1979 the Puntacana lodging itself went up. Barceló and the Newco group later settled at Bávaro, and that northern beach grew into its own resort town.

The airport opened in 1984, and new roads cut the old isolation. Work on a marina began in 1993. In 1996 the Dominican designer Óscar de la Renta and the Spanish singer Julio Iglesias joined the project, and the first residential communities started in 2000. Tortuga Bay, a quieter lodging inside the same estate, opened six years after that. The district gained a political form in 2006, as Verón–Punta Cana, under Higüey. Developers have spoken of environmental and social duties since the first buildings rose, a claim that now sits beside a crowded resort coast and the workforce that runs it.

What to see

Culture

Punta Cana keeps resort time and town time. In the resorts the day is international: buffet seatings, staged merengue, and staff who switch into English because the guests do. In Verón and on the road to Higüey the culture is ordinary Dominican — Spanish first, Catholic feasts, baseball on the television, and merengue and bachata as the music that fills a room rather than only a stage. Families set the week; Sundays pull people toward a long table and, in Higüey, toward Our Lady of Altagracia, a major Marian devotion in the country. The resort strip borrows those rhythms and smooths them: a dance lesson by the pool, a crafts stall between the gates. What it cannot smooth away is the workforce, most of whom commute from towns that see little of the all-inclusive rate. Between those towns and the beach, service is warm and direct, and a little Spanish changes the tone of every exchange. Ask before you photograph people, and offer a proper buenos días before any request.

What to wear

Punta Cana's traditional dress belongs to the Dominican Republic rather than to the resort uniform. Men's older formal shirt is the guayabera or chacabana, a light cotton or linen shirt with vertical pleats, worn for weddings, patron-saint days and any occasion that is smart but too hot for a jacket. Women's festive dress runs to bright cotton, ruffles and a full skirt, the sort of clothes that appear at carnival and at a fiesta patria, not on a weekday at the beach. Larimar, the blue stone sold as a Dominican souvenir, is cut into jewellery in Higüey and in the resort arcades. On an ordinary day in Verón people wear what the heat allows: T-shirts, jeans or shorts, sandals and a cap. Inside the gates the visitor uniform is swimwear from breakfast onward, with a cover-up for the buffet. That reads as normal on the sand and out of place in town. A visitor should pack linen or cotton that breathes, a hat, and sandals that can take hot pavement, plus water shoes if a reef trip is likely. Shoulders and knees should be covered for a church in Higüey. After dark the resorts shift toward dresses and collared shirts, still in light cloth, because the heat does not really leave.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. Punta Cana is hot for most of the year, especially from late summer into autumn. The coast stays mildly windy, which makes the beach more bearable than the inland road. Travellers who wilt should avoid that late-summer peak and treat every month as a sun-and-water trip.

How long. 4–5

Getting there. Fly into Punta Cana International Airport, about 3 kilometres inland on the highway between Higüey and La Romana. Resort packages usually include a coach waiting after customs, with the lodging's name on a sign to the right as you leave the hall; check in at that desk before looking for a bus. Private taxis are there at agreed fares. Santo Domingo is the other gateway, then a drive of about three hours.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources