Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and carries, in Santo Domingo, the oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city in the Americas — a working colonial quarter, not a museum one. Most travellers see only the all-inclusive strip at Punta Cana, which is a particular kind of holiday and not, in any real sense, the country.

The more interesting Dominican Republic is the one with topography. The Cordillera Central rises to Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Caribbean; the Samaná Peninsula in the north-east is where humpback whales gather in their thousands between January and March, one of the most reliable whale encounters in the hemisphere. The smaller boutique properties — clustered around Las Terrenas and the country's quieter coastlines — are where the hospitality reads as considered rather than industrial.

December through April is the dry, reliable season and overlaps neatly with whale season in Samaná. The hurricane window from June onward is real and worth planning around.