Carey and Susan's Excellent Adventures

There are a lot of different modes of transportation here in the Dominican Republic. I am going to talk about our observations of how people get around and then give you some of our own experiences. Hop in and hang on - First of all, let me start with some of the ways that we have observed that I don’t think we will be using. Many Dominicans are very resourceful in how they find and use transportation. For example, in the USA and Canada it is illegal to ride in the back of a pick-up truck, however, every once in a while you see someone ride in the back of a pick-up, but it is pretty rare. Here, they take it to a different level. It is not uncommon at all to see people riding in the back of pickup trucks. Many times they appear to be holding down stuff to keep it from blowing away. I have also seen people riding on the backs of flatbeds, concrete pumpers and other vehicles. I think that a lot of the time the people are workers for the company and just catching a ride to the job sit...

During our travels we plan to travel slowly, staying weeks, and in many cases months at a time in an area. Our thoughts behind this: ·        Get to know the area from a more intimate perspective than an in-and-out tourist ·        Interact more with local people in their day to day life rather than just those in the hospitality industry at the hotel or tourist sites ·        Less expensive lodging – you can negotiate better rates with hotels on a longer term basis. Airbnb, Homeaway or other web-based home sharing platforms are typically far less expensive than hotels ·        Lower food costs – especially if you are in an apartment or house with a kitchen. You can cook you own food, keep snacks in the cupboard and refrigerator, overall just spend less on food. Our apartment building We are staying for a month in a one-bedroom apartment on the fourth fl...

One of the things we may have to get used to as we travel around the world is the fact that in many places law enforcement is paid very little and must supplement their income with “donations”, whether voluntary or forced. We plan on using taxis, buses or other forms of public transportation most of the time on our travels. However, we rented a car for four days in Punta Cana to explore various parts of the island and to decide where we wanted to settle for about a month. We felt this gave us much more flexibility in checking out different neighborhoods and places to rent. We took a day trip to Santo Domingo, about a two and a half hour drive from Punta Cana. DR-3 is a four to six lane modern highway that goes from Santo Domingo to Punta Cana, about 220km. It is quite a pleasant drive. The highway is supported by tolls. Police truck similar to the one that pulled us over It was late afternoon when we hit the first toll booth outside of Santo Domingo on our way back to ...

Our first stop on our retirement nomadic journey was Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Why there? A few reasons: It is sunny and warm in the middle of January The Dominican Republic is a relatively low cost country We could use hotel reward points for the Sheraton Four Points hotel in Punta Cana and get a great value for our points. (I will write another post in the future on this, but over the past couple of years I have become a “travel hacker” or “points hacker.” This is a term that is used to describe getting frequent flyer miles and hotel points in large quantities. At the time we left the USA we had a total of 1.6 million points between all of our loyalty programs, airline, hotels, credit cards, etc.) We were able to get 7 nights at the Sheraton Four Points for 19,000 Starwood points versus getting one night at the Westin just down the street for 16,000 points. Also, we didn’t really have all of our time in the Dominican Republic planned out at the start. We knew...

On January 15, 2016 I left my full time job after thirty-five years in the electrical industry and my wife, Susan, and I began our journey of a nomadic lifestyle – living in various countries in the world for one to six months at time. We have no permanent home or residence anywhere. Right now our plans are as follows: ·        January 21 – March 15 Dominican Republic ·        March 16 – April 13 Asuncion, Paraguay ·        April 16 – May 2 Repositioning cruise from Houston, TX to Barcelona, Spain ·        May 3 – July 1 Travel around Spain ·        July 2 – 15 Iceland ·        July 16 – Back to Nashville to pick up belongings in our storage unit ·        July 23 – Taos, NM to attend a friend’s wedding vow renewal ceremony ·        Jul...