I’m back from this special Caribbean island I’ve never thought to visit, so I’m not just going to explain how this happened but I’m also going to share 3 reasons why we should stay longer. Welcome to Dominica.

So, this was an express trip to Dominica just before the pandemic and there’s some things I wanna share with you today, especially if you go with little time like myself and want to get a flavour. If I were to do this again, I’d definitely stay for a full week. There’s a lot of stuff to do, to see but more importantly to experience in a proper way without rushing. There’s a reason why Dominica is called the Nature Island. The original plan was St Lucia but there was a last minute cancellation so we were booked for Dominica instead and frankly it was such a beautiful experience.

Before I forget, I’ve also made a video about this in case you want to check more of Dominica.

Let’s clarify something really important: Dominica IS NOT the Dominican Republic! Actually, Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic is 600 miles away from Roseau, the capital of Dominica. These 2 are very different places with different experiences such as language (Spanish vs English/Creole), food, land, music, art, people, history and pretty much everything.

I’ll share my experience in 3 parts.

THE NATURE ISLAND

First of all just want to say that 4 years ago in 2017, the worst natural disaster in the history of the island happened when Maria hit the island at 160 mph.

Today Dominica is still recovering. These days they are talking about having funds to construct hurricane-proof buildings as climate change is a reality and something like that could strike again. There’s a big conversation in terms of diversifying the economy and the role of tourism.

This Caribbean island is a perfect destination for those that we enjoy hiking, climbing and waterfalls. It has so many natural wonders—including miles of hiking paths and approximately 365 rivers. So literally we can spend a year there and visit a new river everyday. Talking about natural wonders, one of the most iconic places is Trafalgar Falls. Just 20 minutes away from Roseau, the capital of the islands. The place itself is part of the Morne Trois Piton National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

Needless to say that if we have more time, there’s much more places to experience in nature. Another one really stunning is the Boiling Lake. Probably the most famous of Dominica’s trails and apparently this is the second largest boiling lake in the world. From my perspective it’s really important to go with someone who actually knows the way well and again, this trail is around 8 miles, so it’s probably at least 3-hour-walk each way so we might want to start early.

INSANE BUSH RUM

In every bar we visit, we see an intriguing display of bottles. Each bottle has a label to distinguish its flavour. Typically handmade. In other words, a local “bush rum”.

There’s one place called Ruins Rock Cafe which is a very interesting place as they had a big rum selection that I feel we can describe mainly in 3 different ways: genius, madness or gross. So it depends at how we look at it. I’m not here to judge as every culture is different.

They offer the typical rum flavours such as long leaf, ginger, cinnamon, grape, raspberry or even cucumber. Like literally anything. So far, so good.

However, they also have another selection of rum. This selection includes flavours such as Snake, Lizard, Centipede, Slugs and Grasshopper… including these creatures adding flavour inside each bottle.

In any case, I feel like this is a good place to eat and try the “normal” local rum. But I’m sure there’s people willing to try the uncommon selection and if that’s the case for you, by all means go for it. Personally I was not brave enough for that and no regrets.

DRIVING EXPERIENCE

This is really interesting because driving on the island of Dominica can be an adventure itself. There are lot of unpaved motorways (or highways for the Americans). The drive is on the left-hand side, like in the UK (which is fine for me as I’m based in the UK). But there’s few things to bear in mind.

It’s important to be ready to honk to alert another car or pedestrian that we are arriving. This is actually key at night, as many roads aren’t well-lit. There are also narrow roads and winding roads around the volcanic areas don’t normally have guardrails, so keep this in mind.

Perhaps the funny anecdote is that on the way back from Trafalgar Falls our car broke down and probably not in the best area. So we spent some time waiting for the recovery service to come over. They never came on time so the local driver called a “friend” to pick us up. We needed to catch a boat and to be honest this is funny now but I think we were a bit stressed because we had very little time to go back and catch the boat. At the end the local driver abandoned everything and came with us even though he didn’t have to… so it was a mystery how that story ended.

If you enjoy these posts, feel free to check my previous one about Barbados here. Or if video is better for you, then I have many videos on my YouTube Channel, click here to check.