See the first three featured eco-lodges...
Distill Dominica down to its basics and you'll derive a simple formula: unrivaled natural beauty plus mad rushes of adrenaline – ooh-aah plus yee-ha! Unlike most Caribbean islands, the allure here isn't a billboard image of suntanned bodies relaxing on brilliant white sands. Dominica's true beauty is primordial, raw and powerful, and to really appreciate it, you have to immerse yourself. Fortunately, as imposing as the island's geography can be, you can scale your adventures from easy to extreme. At the forest margins, hummingbirds probe exotic blooms that are their only color rivals in a realm of green on green on green. Simply step into the jungle along any of the island's 365 rivers and you're instantly transported to a lost world where trees curl skeletal toes over riverbanks, vines snake from high in the canopy, and mosses smother any surface that remains still for more than a minute.
Hike just a little farther into the jungle and you'll find several of the hemisphere's most picturesque cascades, like Trafalgar Falls. In Emerald Pool's paradisiacal setting, you slip into the water for a baptism beneath a cool waterfall. Lured ever deeper, you can swim inside the mysterious winding canyon of Titou Gorge until you're enveloped in the mist and feel the overpowering strength of yet another waterfall.
Nine seething volcanoes lie camouflaged beneath Dominica's lush, green forest, and at Champagne Beach you'll witness how close to the surface the geothermal marrow boils as you snorkel amid bubbling volcanic gases and reach your hands into hot-water vents. Take to the sea on a boat trip off the calm west coast and you'll cruise over abyssal depths that attract the Caribbean's grandest mix of dolphins and whales, including a resident pod of sperm whales.
Action Planner: What to Do in Dominica...
For those looking to reach beyond the soft adventures, Dominica brings all the heart-pounding action you can handle. With five mountains more than 4,000 feet high, covered in the region's most pristine rainforest, the island boasts some legendary hiking. The mixing of currents offshore creates some of the Caribbean's most electric diving. And the little-known sport of canyoning takes advantage of the island's innumerable rivers – some flowing chill and drinkably pure, others mineral white and Jacuzzi hot. They draw you deep inside the billowing drapery of jungle to where even the air is tinted green and reveal a spectacular cascade – then fling you over.
A Dominica day shouldn't end once the mud's washed off and the muscles are massaged. You need to bask in the humid exhalations of the rainforest all evening, drift off to the symphony of tree frogs and wake to the chorus of birds. Your lodging should provide a seamless transition between indoors and out. Forget TVs, soaking tubs or air-conditioners. This is an island that calls for warm wood floors and lazy ceiling fans, open windows and open minds, and hotel dining rooms that feed you a steady diet of local fish, cocoa tea, and heaps of mangoes, papayas and passion fruit. It's a place where you catch yourself about to order a rum and Coke and instead ask the bartender for the freshest squeezed anything.
See the first three featured eco-lodges...
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