Cabarete

Cabarete is a small, laid-back Caribbean beach village located only 20 minutes away from the Puerto Plata International Airport on the northern shore of the Dominican Republic. It's a perfect tropical vacation spot, especially for the young traveler seeking fun, new friends and sporting adventures. With its charming, hip ambience and a combination of relaxed and adventurous lifestyles, most visitors can barely resist the spontaneous temptation of extending their stay and just hang around the place for another while.

The village of Cabarete is spread out across the center of a gorgeous, semi-circular beach of golden, sun-soaked, sand. Just behind, limiting its size lies a tranquil lagoon, backed up by richly verdant hills overflowing with luxurious tropical vegetation.

The perfect blend of the surrounding physical elements of nature such as the location of the offshore reef at the entrance of the bay, the direction from which the trade winds usually blow, and the low-lying hills behind the village, which cause a unique thermal effect, form a beautiful layout. They create an unusual synthesis of outstanding wind and wave conditions. These make Cabarete's bay an exceptional location not only for water-sports such as kiteboarding and windsurfing, but for regular surfing at El Encuentro beach as well.

Cabarete is also the perfect place to just lay back to work on that perfect tan. It's the best thing to do when you're not out gliding over warm Caribbean waters, or participating in some other fun adventure sport such as mountain-biking, scuba-diving, wakeboarding, cave exploring or canyoning.

Cabarete is the city of kitesurfing and windsurfing in the Dominican Republic. Is considered one of the best places to practice this sports in the Caribbean. Also has a great beach and this has a lot of greats bars and restaurants for everyone. Kiteboarding is the hottest new water sport on the planet and Cabarete matches with it perfectly. This small Caribbean town has the reputation of having the most fantastic kitesurfing conditions in the world. Accordingly, some of the greatest in this sport have chosen Cabarete as their regular training camp to practice the sport all year round.

Cabarete consists of a main road of about 800 meters (0.5 mile), so walking is fine. During the day a 'motoconco' (a simple motorbike with a driver) is cheap and fast - but pretty dangerous. At night its best to walk as many of the motoconcho drivers like to have a beer or 10.

You can walk the beach or you can walk the mainstreet. Use common sense like not walking alone at night.

Public transportation comes in two forms: sedans called "Publicos" and mini-vans called "Gua-guas". You can flag down either from anywhere on the side of the road, pile in together with the locals, and hop out wherever you like. Publico is 15 pesos per person in the day and 20 at night, Gua-guas are 10 pesos per person and only operate during the day. Taxis are everywhere and a good alternative as well.

There are plenty of cool gift shops to buy all kinds things to remember your holiday and share the Caribbean spirit with people back home.

One unique idea is "Mamajuana" a bottle of herbs and sticks that you fill with red wine, empty, then fill with rum and honey. It's for settling the stomach after dinner and makes a very cool addition to anyone's home bar.