The Southeast Coast

Las Américas Highway—built by the dictator Trujillo so his son could race his sports cars—runs east along the coast from Santo Domingo to La Romana, nearly a two-hour drive. This highway changes names along the way and eventually becomes Highway 3 in La Romana. Midway are Santo Domingo's nearest long-established beach resorts, Boca Chica and Juan Dolio. The latter is undergoing an astounding renaissance at this writing, with major beach rejuvenation and new high-end condo developments; it may very well be poised to become the Caribbean's answer to Miami's South Beach.

Boca Chica, on the other hand, has been left to the low-budget travelers looking for cheap, all-inclusive resorts and sex tourists. Baseball fans may want to make a pilgrimage to Sammy Sosa's hometown, San Pedro de Macorís. Vestiges remain from its heyday in the early 20th century, when it was a thriving port and center of culture.

Sugar was king in the area surrounding the typical Dominican city of La Romana before it was made famous by the megagolf resort Casa de Campo.To its credit, Casa continues to reinvent itself. In the new millennium, Marina Chavón was born, and although skeptics thought it would be overkill—that there was not the demand in this area of the Caribbean from either sailboats or motor yachts to warrant such an extravagant facility—it has been so successful that an expansion was necessary.

Due east of La Romana is Bayahibe Bay, where you can find a handful of all-inclusive resorts, including several on Playa Dominicus, a glorious beach in an area originally settled by Italians, who introduced the locals to tourism. The beaches come as long, unbroken stretches and also as half-moons. This region is more and more becoming a less frenetic and more attractive alternative to the high-density tourist zone of the "far" east, that is, Punta Cana and Bávaro.

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