Paddling & Rafting in Samaná Peninsula, Dominican Republic

Los Haitises National Park sits across Samaná Bay on the southern shore — a landscape of limestone haystack hills rising directly from the water, draped in forest and cut through with mangrove channels where pelicans and frigatebirds nest in the canopy above the boats. Access is by water only, which means every visit involves a boat crossing from Samaná town or Sánchez, followed by kayaking or small boat navigation through the mangrove labyrinth into caves with Taino petroglyphs carved into the walls. The park is extraordinary in any month but the dry season from December through March delivers the clearest water, calmest crossings, and the best light for the interior cave visits. The Veranillo in July — a brief dry window that interrupts the rainy season — offers a secondary window with the park at its most intensely green and the channels running clear after the first rains have flushed the system.