Dominica Travel Tips

This post contains some observations, lessons learned, and tips regarding travel to Dominica. Some of these have been covered in other posts on Dominica and some are covered only here.

Money and Expenses

• Dominica's currency is Eastern Caribbean Dollars, but U.S. dollars are widely accepted.
• Credit cards are widely accepted, but there are also several places that do not accept credit card.
• The Dominica week park pass is an exceptional deal for many Dominica travelers who spend a couple days or more on the island. We purchased our pass at the Trafalgar Falls Reception Center, but it can be picked up at select other locations as well. For $12 US, it allows entry into these attractions:
  • Morne Trois Pitons National Park World Heritage Sites
    • Morne Trois Pitons
    • Emerald Pool
    • Boiling Lake
    • Freshwater Lake
    • Boeri Lake
    • Middleham Falls
  • Cabrits National Park (Cabrits National Park and Fort Shirley)
  • Morne Diablotin National Park
    • Morne Diablotin
    • Syndicate Nature Trail
  • Other Sites
    • Indian River
    • Trafalgar Falls
    • Soufriere Sulphur Springs

Vehicle Rental and Driving

The post "Driving in Dominica" has detailed information about driving in Dominica and includes links to numerous other resources on driving in Dominica.

Here are summarized tips related to renting a vehicle and driving in Dominica:

• Rent all-wheel drive or 4-wheel drive vehicle.
• Rent smallest possible vehicle that suits needs to deal with narrow lanes and difficulty parking.
• Have car insurance either through credit card used to rent vehicle or purchased as part of rental.
• Concentrate fully on driving and what's happenung around you at all times!
• Expect people, chickens, dogs, cats, iguanas, and other animals and items to be in the road at any time.
• Expect vehicles in front of you, especially taxis (which are often white sports utility vehicles and vans), to stop at any moment to pick up passengers.
• Expect vehicles to be stopped in the lane even where there is only one lane each way and busy traffic in both directions.
• Expect oncoming drivers to be in middle of road, especially coming around turns. Use horn (and lights at night) to warn oncoming drivers when you're approaching a turn.
• Be aware of no or few street lights in areas away from the cities and towns.
• Beware deep drainage ditchs alongside the road.
• Beware pot holes.
• Beware large speed bumps in cities and towns.
• Beware of wet roads with frequent rain in Dominica.
• Be aware that there are relatively few street signs (speed limit signs, names of streets, etc.) in Dominica.
• When parking alongside road, pull in mirrors.
• Distances on maps of Dominica will probably take longer to traverse than you'd think due to the curving, narrow roads, especially when going through towns and cities. Roseau's downtown is particuarly chaotic.

Cruise or Not?

The majority of tourists to Dominica visit via cruise. We enjoyed flying into Dominica and spending five nights there because it allowed us more time to see the island and to experience it with only a very small number of fellow tourists (we saw one couple on the Trafalgar Falls trail, one couple on the Syndicate Nature Trail, and shared a boat with one other couple on the whale watching tour, but had the rest of the sites we saw essentially to ourselves (along with a few local residents in some cases).

The waterfront area of Roseau is far less hectic when no cruise ship is in port and, in fact, the market stalls are all closed up and the photographs above and below this sentence show.

When we visited Trafalgar Falls on a day with no cruise ship, we had it to ourselves, but the information area was not open. When we returned on a day a cruise ship was in town, the information area was open.

The Bush Bar on the Indian River was also not open when we enjoyed having the ride and area to ourselves.

People who prefer the markets being open, prefer information centers being open, and prefer other amentities such as the Bush Bar being open area likely to want to visit Dominica on a cruise ship or while cruise ships are in port. Our preference was to give up those things in favor the what mattered more to us: almost no other tourists and the beautiful "Nature Island" seemingly all to ourselves at times.

The following sites were highly useful in determining when cruise ships would be in the Roseau and Portsmouth ports and what the capacity of those ships is. We used this information to decide when to go to Roseau area and when to stay near our lodging in the Portsmouth area.

• CruiseMapper: Roseau, Dominica (click on "Schedule" tab)
• CruiseDig: Roseau, Dominica
• CrewCenter: Roseau, Dominica
• CruiseMapper: Portsmouth, Dominica (click on "Schedule" tab)
• CruiseDig: Portsmouth, Dominica
• CrewCenter: Portsmouth, Dominica