The Roavi Blog
Stories from people who live there.
Travel tips, city guides, and local insights from the Roavi team.
974 articles
Travel Tips · Santo Domingo
Dominican Spanish: The Slang You'll Hear in the First Hour
Dominican Spanish is the fastest in the Americas and drops half its consonants. Twenty phrases will take you from lost to keeping up.
Oscar Garcia··4 min read
Travel Tips · Punta Cana
Driving in the Dominican Republic: When to Rent a Car, and When Absolutely Not
The highways are genuinely good. The driving culture is not what you're used to. Here's where a car transforms the trip and where it ruins it.
Oscar Garcia··5 min read
Travel Guides · Marrakech
Sahara Desert Tour from Marrakech: The Decision You Make Before You Book
Two desert trips are sold from Marrakech and they are not comparable. One shows you the dunes from the photographs; the other is seven hours each way to something much smaller.
Oscar Garcia··4 min read
Travel Tips · Punta Cana
How Many Days in Punta Cana? An Honest Answer for 2026
Five to seven nights is the answer for almost everyone. Why the first and last days barely count, how many excursions is too many, and when to split the trip.
Oscar Garcia··7 min read
Travel Tips · Punta Cana
Punta Cana with Kids: What Actually Works in 2026
The resorts are genuinely built for families; most of the excursions are not. How to pick the hotel, which trips work with small children, and what it costs.
Oscar Garcia··7 min read
Travel Tips
How to Find a Travel Buddy in 2026 (and Not Regret It)
Someone for one day and someone for the whole trip are two different asks, and the advice is almost opposite. Where to find each, and the five questions to settle first.
Oscar Garcia··7 min read
Travel Guides · Samaná
Los Haitises: Mangroves, Karst Islands and Taíno Caves by Boat
Limestone islands rising out of a flat bay, mangrove channels you can only enter by boat, and caves with drawings made before Columbus arrived.
Oscar Garcia··5 min read
Travel Tips · Samaná
How to Get to Samaná from Santo Domingo, Punta Cana or the Airport
The toll road makes Samaná much closer than the map suggests — and the airport twenty minutes from Las Terrenas is the thing almost nobody checks.
Oscar Garcia··6 min read
Travel Tips · Samaná
Salto El Limón: What the Waterfall Trip Is Actually Like
Fifty metres of water into a cold green pool, at the end of forty minutes of mud, river crossings and a horse who has done this more times than you have.
Oscar Garcia··5 min read
City Guides · Samaná
Las Terrenas: The Best Beach Town in the Dominican Republic
French bakeries, Italian restaurants, Dominican colmados and three beaches, in a town on the Samaná peninsula that most visitors to the country never hear about.
Oscar Garcia··6 min read
Travel Guides · Samaná
Whale Watching in Samaná: The Best Six Weeks in the Dominican Republic
Several thousand humpbacks come into one bay to breed and calve, for about eight weeks a year. It is the one thing in the Dominican calendar you cannot see at another time.
Oscar Garcia··7 min read
Travel Tips · Punta Cana
The Best Time to Visit Punta Cana, Month by Month
Punta Cana is warm every month of the year, so the question is never really about temperature. It is about rain, seaweed, crowds and what you are willing to pay.
Oscar Garcia··9 min read