Sniff out the Caribbean isles hush-hush hammocked…
From car trunk audio system thumping merengue, to marketeers hawking contemporary mofongo, Dominicans have many abilities — spoiler alert: quietude ain’t one of them.
That is, however, until you ask about their secret seashores — then a silence washes across their vocal cords like so a lot seaweed upon their shores.
Of course, quisqueyanos shortly discover their phrases and freely bloviate about Punta Cana, La Romana, Puerto Plata. These are the vacationer traps. These are the ones meant to sunburn the likes of Drake and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Your villa will overlook the beauteous blue lagoon that is Rincón Bay.
Courtesy of Ocama
Empty palms: These discreet Dominican seashores are sparsely touristed. Courtesy of Ocama
Then there are what locals dare only murmur about in the back nook of a colmado: the DR’s Seven Hidden Beaches, accessed only by mountain climbing (you boat it = you’ve cheated; you horseback it = you’ve hacked it). Their names are most likely significant if you handed Spanish I: Playa del Amor, Playa el Ermitaño, Playas Colorada 1, Colorada 2, Playa Escondida, Playa Caletón and La Playita. (You get, at least, the “playa” half.)
So, soldier: Can you deal with the secrets and techniques of Hispaniola’s better half? Even if it’s a covert SPF-basted, Presidente brewski-armed black op across 1.8 miles of cranky shoreline, probably requiring a trashy seashore read break along the six-hour stroll?
Good, then your first order is to verify into HQ.
Sleep simple as Ocama’s villas start at $970 per evening. Courtesy of Ocama
The eight-villa, 35-acre Ocama retreat — which began as an AirBnB back in November 2023 (when the villas have been first completed being constructed) but didn’t open as a resort with a 24/7 concierge and industrial kitchen until February 2025 — overlooks Rincón Bay on the tranquil northeastern Samaná Peninsula and is surrounded completely by lush forestry save for the entry gate. Staff will prepare the journey (also zip-line, crusing, birding, whale-watching, ATV and metropolis excursions).
While seashores and coves, not to point out hammocks sturdy enough upon which to horizontally drink coconut booze, are completely public, the best are laborious to attain. And they’re sparsely, if at all, populated. But you shall attain them with the help of a freshly bespoke strolling stick and a information like Joel Nicolás Paredes, of Exotic Samaná, who macheted one based on top and frailty. Mine, not the tree’s. It got here in mighty handily when mossy, up-and-downing crags paved the only approach ahead.
The Easter egg to keep an eye out for is the mysterious “blue house” along the approach. Outside, a crew of two proprietors supplied up espresso, tea and trinkets, for minimal coinage.
House of blues: Sadly, the only man-made construction you’ll discover along the hike doesn’t take reservations! Chris Bunting
If your Right Guard is beginning to go flawed, your water bottle’s needle on E and your ankles are a-crankling, there may be actually a mild at the end of a tunnel: a natural skylight deep inside Cuevo de Duarte, a cave named for the Dominican Republic’s founding father, Juan Pablo Duarte, proper before the end.
You hear those little mouse squeaks? The good news is, they’re not! Bad news, if you insist, they’re from bats flipping and flapping above. They’re not the vampiric sort so keep it together and use your best inside voicery, thoughts the stalactites and just admire the cooling darkness. And possibly don’t put the telephone digicam in evening imaginative and prescient mode. Being blind as a bat is the meta.
Once on the other aspect at La Playita, a dip into a piña colada before heading to Caño Frío is next. If you’re salty about salt, you’ll love this sodium-free, mega-mangroved river fed by contemporary underwater springs, which fearlessly goal-line stands against the saline Caribbean Sea. Expect children with inflatable pelican floaties to mingle right here with lots of dembow blasting through the trees.
The hardest half now? Keeping the secret. Whoops.
Perks in the lurk
Gutsy transfer
Shrimping ain’t simple: Ocama onboarded Chef Fierro Pérez Castillo as meister of both surf and turf. NY Post photograph composite
DR-born and -bred Fierro Pérez Castillo is Ocama’s new govt chef bringing a little bit French, a little bit Asian and a lot bit Dominican flare to his fare, fortunately serving it to your room or at the common and thatch-roofed space dubbed the Kai Pavilion. Chef Castillo is an alum of Meliá Hotels, Gran Sirenis and MSC Cruises, so we dare you not to take pleasure in his shrimp and nachos.
On the horizon
By law, all of DR’s seashores are public. But Ocama’s sneaky little slice of Rincón Bay, Playa del Amor, is de facto all yours. A enjoyable fact about its sands: Consider its wayward seaweed like Voldemort — it shall not be named. (Psst, it’s sargassum.) When at sea, all communal and innocuous, it virtually appears to be like like the floating golf inexperienced at Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Resort, have been it unsprinklered. When it comes ashore and dies alone, though, it turns black and smells like a corpse.
Staffers right here correctly bury it, which is great news for all and means the imminent opening of a everlasting seashore bar is a go this yr (as of now, you’ll be able to makeshift one with Ocama’s seashore tables and chairs).
What can brown do for you? Annoy. Have no worry: Ocama’s staffers are execs at dealing with sargassum. Chris Bunting
Highly rated
Ocama’s multi-level and kitchened villas come in one-, two- and three-bedroom flavors, all with personal plunge swimming pools (you’ll have to get into a donnybrook over which has one of the new soaking tubs). Just thoughts their steep and rail-less marble stairways as they will make for a free-climb worthy of a Netflix particular — particularly if you’re a few Barcelós in (from $970 per evening).
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