Dominican Republic day tours
This holiday is operated by a company based in the holiday destination and they will be able to provide expert local knowledge. They will be able to tailor make your holiday to suit your requirements not only concerning the dates of travel but also typically the standard of accommodation, and thus price. It is rare for local operators to be able to help with the booking of your flights.
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Ecotourism makes a difference, and in the Northeast of the Dominican Republic with more than 44 resorts it is welcomed by both local people and visitors who want to connect directly. Here, you are guided by our local guides, and even if the language barrier sometimes makes it difficult to understand all, you’ll leave as friends. We stay away from controversial adventure tours (e.g. 4x4, quad biking, etc) but promote eco-friendly walking tours, hiking, etc. Furthermore we keep our groups small to reduce the impact on the nature areas visited.
By taking a day trip with us, you travel responsibly and every dollar spent during such a day trip reaches poor people. We offer you the chance to climb up the mountains with us in Pedro Sanchez, in the Cordillera Oriental, to discover a deep cave or a big waterfall, we offer horseriding in the valley, (each horse has a different local owner), or just a refreshment in the small river, where villagers go, now called 'Balneario Ecoturistico'.
We promote and visit local cultural events such as 'Atabales', or the famous patronales of the village and connect you directly with local nature and local peoples, typical Dominican traditions and culture.
Miches, on the other side of the hill, was a small fishermens village, almost forgotten. When starting our project we looked to integrate some natural attractions of Miches in our ecotour program, and of course a visit to the virgin beaches of Miches and a deep sea fishing trip starting in Miches was part of it. In the meantime, 4 international universities have signed up to work together in the planning of sustainable development, and a future for Miches with ecotouristic activities. The Columbia university (Manhattan, New York) approached us for information exchange, and we now develop new ecotours for Miches as well, integrating the natural attractions there such as Laguna Limon. The other universities are USF (University of Southern Florida), INTEC in the Dominican capital, and the university of Sevilla (Spain).
We eat at local restaurants and you have the opportunity to purchase items from local vendors, thus putting some dollars directly into local communities where they are most needed. We train individuals to become our local tour guides. Soon a volunteer from the US-Peace Corps will arrive to do community work for two consecutive years, teaching the villagers about ecotourism and nature conservation and how they can engage in it. In the past, we have not only created jobs, we have also empowered people to set up their own business in cooperation with us, like Julio, who is now selling his coffee, cacao and fruits at the roadside twice a week.
Community
As pioneer to create ecotourism in the area, we support not only the village but are known in the whole region of El Seibo as Honorary Member of the new Development Agency, with focus on the development of sustainable ecotourism with benefits for the comunity. My promise to support the local community since many years now is a daily pensioners life: whether writing project proposals for cacao farmers or fruit producers, assisting all the meetings of local and regional organizations, making day excursions to one of the many natural attraction like caves or waterfalls, and via Internet connecting peoples from all over the world with the local villagers (I am really talking 7 languages fluently) thus acting as a translator between the outside modern world and the poor Dominican countryside. Globalization has reached this little Dominican village of Pedro Sanchez, and we want to make the best out of it: Show our rich nature to all visitors, offer local culture and traditions (like life guitar music or Folcloric dances) and of course create awareness of how everybody (locals and visitors alike ) can help to protect the Environment by making vacation inside the country, as a responsable traveller, thus helping in the alleviation of the great poverty everywhere visible.
Of course we employ only local peoples, for helping in our restaurant kitchen or accompanying us as local tour guide. We always connect our visitors to all our village peoples - they come as foreigners but they leave as friends, most of them promising to return....
Together with some locals, we have receintly started another touristic project called "El Criollo", with a large playground and rope park for kids, even a small ZIP-line for kids, offering local products and handicrafts made locally.
In other words, every dollar spent on such a vacation will make a big change in the life of a poor villager- and believe us, these poor farmers will not steal your digital camera or belongings, in contrary- they will invite you to enter their small cottage and enjoy a Dominican coffee.
