Driving from Puerto Plata to Punta Cana - avoid major cities

David Potter

New member
Apr 8, 2013
3
0
0
Greetings...

My wife and I are driving from Puerto Plata to Punta Cana after staying a week in Cabarete. What is the best, scenic route that avoids the congestion of major cities like Santo Domingo? Anything interesting/cool to stop and see along the way?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 

SKY

Gold
Apr 11, 2004
13,470
3,604
113
Very easy to do. Take the regular road towards Sosua and continue to Nagua. When you come to a park you will see a sign Santo Domingo left. Follow the road until you hit the new Hwy to SD. At the end of that hwy. make a left and a quick right under the hwy. Then left and you will be on the Hwy passing the airport in SD. From there you will eventually hit La Romana. Just a bit after you pass Casa de Campo you will hit another brand new hyw. 30 minutes later you are in Punta Cana near the airport.

And for interesting, the new road to SD is very scenic and goes through a Natural Park. Go slow, they have radar traps there. One near the end just past San Isidro for sure.
 

Bob K

Silver
Aug 16, 2004
2,520
121
63
Sky they are leaving from Cabarete. Why take them that way through Santiago and all the congestion there rather than:
Head east from Cabarete to .....Oh you confused me to by heading them "towards Sosua and continue to Nagua". Think you meant head East towards Sabanate from Cabarete and continue to Nagua....

BobK
 

David Potter

New member
Apr 8, 2013
3
0
0
Very easy to do. Take the regular road towards Sosua and continue to Nagua. When you come to a park you will see a sign Santo Domingo left. Follow the road until you hit the new Hwy to SD. At the end of that hwy. make a left and a quick right under the hwy. Then left and you will be on the Hwy passing the airport in SD. From there you will eventually hit La Romana. Just a bit after you pass Casa de Campo you will hit another brand new hyw. 30 minutes later you are in Punta Cana near the airport.

And for interesting, the new road to SD is very scenic and goes through a Natural Park. Go slow, they have radar traps there. One near the end just past San Isidro for sure.

Thanks for the quick response! When looking at a map (according to Google Maps), it suggests to take Highway 5 all the way until Highway 7. The go on Highway 23 towards Bayaguana and the Highway 66 towards Hato Mayor del Rey. Then Highway 4 to Higuey and finally Highway 3 to Punta Cana.

Not having names of highways makes me a bit nervous, but we will have a GPS. What do you think?
 

cjp2010

New member
Mar 25, 2013
397
0
0
David, I drove Sosua to Punta Cana and back last summer. I went down the way Sky suggests and came back the way your map suggests. I suggest taking Sky's advice. The way Sky says won't get you into any major congestion as you'll hit Santo Domingo east of the major traffic jams. The way you see on your map is technically shorter in distance but not as fast and not as scenic in my opinion. The roads are not as good going the way your map suggests. You'll have to drive them much slower. And a couple of them go a long ways between any sort of business or anything. They are basically back roads. And signs are not very frequent on them so it will be easy to get lost. GPS is good, but I'd stick to the major highways and follow Sky's path.
 

cjp2010

New member
Mar 25, 2013
397
0
0
Guess it would also help if I posted driving time. Sky's path took us 6.5 hours (not counting our stop times) and the other way took is about 8.5 hours (again not counting stop times). So shorter distance doesn't mean shorter time. I do speed quite a bit when I drive on the highways that aren't in terrible condition so take that time with a grain of salt.
 

cjp2010

New member
Mar 25, 2013
397
0
0
Derfish, makes another good point. We did cross that river. It wasn't so deep on the road when we passed in June, but a local told us that the road is not passable for most in the winter / rainy season. And back roads here do close some times. So even with a GPS, you may be going along your way on a road and hit a point where it is closed and have to double back, but there aren't a ton of roads here in some areas so that can easily send you 30 miles out of the way.