For whatever reason, I got it in my head to vacation in Dominica, and now we have an 8-day trip booked in January. I have one guidebook and a map, but there is not a ton of information or reviews of places to see/stay there, so I’m wondering if any FTers have personal experience and can make recommendations. (Mr. travelmad478 is not certified at scuba, so unfortunately that is out.) So far we have flights and a car (4x4) booked, but that’s it. TIA!

I have nothing at all helpful to say, other than that I knew someone who went several years ago and said it was gorgeous. Please do report back after your trip - I for one have also thought it looked like an interesting place to go, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I've thought about combining a visit to Dominica with some of the French islands and getting to/from by ferry.

Dominica is not your typical fun-in-the-sun Caribbean island. The focus is on nature tourism and birdwatching and hiking and rainforests. There are no big splashy resorts. I don't think there are any international chain properties at all. The "resorts" are a bit more like nature lodges that you'd find in Costa Rica or mainland Belize. The beaches are mostly dark-sand ones. Not that you can't laze on the beach and your hotel will certainly have a pool, but this is not Aruba or St. Barths. Dominica decided years ago that it couldn't compete with places like that. It staked out a different niche that its nature-minded fans really love. It's a gorgeous place.

I do hope you knew that about Dominica when you booked your travel.

I did know that and that�s exactly what appealed to me about it. We are not lie-on-the-beach types, much more interested in nature, hiking etc. I�m still hoping to get some more intel on logistics/location planning, etc.

How did the trip end up going? I was just in Anguilla (a very different type of island destination) and have been thinking about exploring some more of the nature-/hiking-oriented islands. I'd love to hear about your experiences!

We had a very nice time. In general it is very jungly and lush. The western coastline (lee shore) is good for swimming/snorkeling; the eastern (windward) coastline gets huge, rough waves and so is not a place to swim, but what we saw of it was nice to look at. The bulk of development, such as it is, is on the western side.

Some specific issues: we had booked a 4x4 from Avis, but when we got to the airport, neither Avis nor the car were to be found. They were supposed to meet us at the airport with the car but they just never showed up. There is no Avis office there at all, though there are a few local car rental companies. We ended up throwing ourselves on the mercy of one of the local guys, who didn’t have a spare car for us but called the Avis rep (whom he knew) and heard from him that “the car was in the shop” or some such. He also sent us to another of the local companies, who did have a (non-4x4) car, which we then rented. So it all worked out in the end, but took about an hour longer than it should have, and I had to do some unsatisfying yelling with Avis when we got home. As it happened, a 4x4 was not necessary anyway, so that was OK.

Another specific issue about driving is that the roads are slightly terrifying. Mostly, they are narrow, with one lane in each direction, and with quite scary concrete ditches running right along the edges of the lanes—with no barrier whatsoever between the driving lane and the 18-inch drop into the ditch. So if you stray a little bit off center, which you might want to be doing when a big truck comes at you from the other direction, you risk basically destroying the car. They drive on the left, and your rental car will likely be a stick shift. Dominica is quite mountainous, and as such many roads are very windy and steep, so you will be utilizing all your low gears a lot! The upshot of all this was that Mr. travelmad478, who is an anxious person and not accustomed to either right-hand-drive cars or manual transmissions, asked me to do all the driving during the trip. I am not anxious and very accustomed to both driving on the left and stick shifts, so I was OK with this, but it took a few days for me to get used to the ditches and the continual downshifting into first gear!

As I said in my original post two years ago, we had a guidebook and a big, detailed map. We planned the trip by going through the guidebook and figuring out what we’d like to see, then looking at the map and figuring out where we’d need to stay to see those things. The one thing we did wrong was to not realize that the fact that the map was very large did not mean that the island is very large and so we discovered that sometimes, the places we were staying were only 30-45 minutes apart by car! (We have taken note of this for our trip to Puerto Rico next month!)

Highlights: snorkeling at Champagne Reef on a sunny day was super, super cool—we liked it so much we went there twice. The geothermal stuff, hot springs etc., is also fun—we took a short hike to one near Soufriere. If you like birding, Syndicate Nature Trail is a really nice place for it. The red rocks at Point Baptiste on the north side of the island were pretty, and relatively easy to access. We did a couple of nice hikes—section 13 of the National Trail way up north had really nice views, and section 2 way down south was also good although one part of it that we were trying to get to ended up being inaccessible due to lack of trail maintenance. Lack of trail maintenance is an issue everywhere. Use AllTrails and download the trails onto your phone before you go hiking.

We did get in some beach time—the beaches are OK, generally not the spectacular stuff you’ll get in some other Caribbean islands, but nice enough. There are many beaches with very little development and not a lot of people there. Mero Beach had slightly more development, and we had a nice couple of hours there in rented loungers with an umbrella, plus one of our best meals at Indee’s Beach Bar there. We snorkeled a lot—the marine reserve at Scott’s Head, the very southern end of the island and the very end of the road, is nice too. It probably would have been nicer at a different time of year, but even in January it was OK.

There’s just one decent-size city, Roseau, and even that is pretty small. We walked around it for a couple hours and that was plenty—there’s not a lot to see. We also took a whale-watching trip that left from there, during which we saw zero whales, but it was nice to be on the water.

The food was pretty basic everywhere. We had one or two meals that were slightly more elevated, but just good, not great. Keep your expectations low and you will not be disappointed! Accommodations were also pretty basic, although we tend to stay in mid-range places anyway—we are usually just looking for a decent bed and air conditioning. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, several Airbnbs, one hostel-type place outside Soufriere, etc.

Let me know if you have any specific questions! Here is the photo album from our trip.

Thank you! This is all very interesting. I don't have any firm trip plans, but I'm just in a Caribbean state of mind at the moment, and Dominica seems intriguing. I appreciate you sharing your experiences.

I'm following up on this thread (two years later, wow) because I'm finally planning to head to Dominica myself! Any additional thoughts or tips you can think of?

I'm planning on going for two weeks - one week staying in the Roseau Valley, the second week staying on the eastern side of the island closer to the airport. I don't have any firm plans, but after a few pretty stressful and unpleasant months lately, I'm very happy to relax and take it slow.

One big question I'm trying to answer is how late the buses run from the airport to Roseau. I'm expecting to land around 3:30pm on a Saturday and would rather take a cheap local bus than spend US$100 or whatever on a taxi, but I can't seem to get a straight answer on how that works. I guess I'll find out, but if you have any experience with buses in Dominica, I'd love to hear about it!

This is a highly personal call, but to me it would seem that a full week on the eastern side might be more than necessary/desired. There is very little development in that part of the island, and I’m not sure how much there is to actually do. You cannot swim or snorkel or scuba on that side, I’m pretty sure—the water is super rough. No beaches, though there is some jungly stuff that seemed attractive. You might split up that week between the eastern side and the far northern bit (between Calabishie and Portsmouth, including that spit of land up in the NW corner.

We did not take any buses there, so unfortunately I can’t help you with that part. Our whole trip was in a rental car. You could probably get the best answer to your “how late do the buses run” from a hotel in Roseau.