Secrets Cap Cana Resort & Spa - Adults Only - All Inclusive

Cap Cana occupies a sliver of the Dominican Republic's southeastern coast where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. This is not downtown Punta Cana's sprawl of resorts and palm-lined boulevards, but a gated, 30,000-acre private community built around a deepwater marina and limestone bluffs that tilt toward turquoise shallows. The Punta Espada Golf Course ribbons along seaside cliffs just under two kilometres away, designed by Jack Nicklaus and routinely ranked among the Caribbean's best. Drive the coastal road and you'll pass architectural villas, yacht berths at Marina Cap Cana (2.5 kilometres south), and the powder-fine crescent of Playa Juanillo, a sheltered beach barely three kilometres distant where the sand compresses underfoot like confectioner's sugar.

Punta Cana proper is the Dominican Republic's economic engine, pulling more visitors than any other Caribbean destination. Punta Cana International Airport sits ten kilometres inland, a twenty-minute drive through sugarcane fields and construction sites.

The regional capital, Higüey, is a half-hour west and worth visiting for the modernist Basílica Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia if you crave a dose of Dominican religious fervour and mid-century concrete geometry. Most travelers, though, stay anchored to the coast, where offshore reefs keep the water impossibly clear and the horizon smudges into sky.

Cap Cana's Punta Espada Golf Course Driving Range lies 1.7 kilometres away, a warm-up before tackling the course's signature clifftop holes where iguanas sun themselves on fairway edges. Ten kilometres south, Corales Golf Course offers another Nicklaus design with equal drama and less wind. For those who prefer water to greens, Marina Cap Cana (2.5 kilometres) charters catamarans to Isla Saona and deploys deep-sea fishing boats in pursuit of marlin and mahi-mahi. Playa Juanillo, 2.6 kilometres east, is the beach you picture when you close your eyes and think "Caribbean": no vendors, no umbrellas, just sand that squeaks and water so translucent you can count the ripples on the seabed from knee-deep.

Monumento Natural Hoyo Claro, eight kilometres inland, is a freshwater cenote where you can swim in gin-clear water surrounded by jungle canopy and limestone walls. Book a table at any of the marina's restaurants for grilled dorado or mofongo, the Dominican staple of fried plantains mashed with garlic and chicharrón. The Refugio de Vida Silvestre Lagunas de Bávaro, 18.6 kilometres north, is a mangrove lagoon system where flamingos wade and herons stalk the shallows at dawn.

January through March deliver the clearest, driest days, when humidity loosens its grip and trade winds keep the air moving. Morning light is sharp, the sea a deeper blue. Temperatures hover in the mid-twenties Celsius, ideal for golf rounds that don't end in sweat-soaked shirts.

April through August bring heat that builds through the afternoon until you crave the shade of a palapa or the plunge of a pool. The air thickens, but so does the green of the inland hills. Mango trees fruit. Afternoon showers roll in from the Atlantic, brief and violent, then the sun returns and steam rises from the pavement.

September and October are the wettest, stormiest months, when the tropics remember they're the tropics. November and December transition back to drier days, though the sea stays warm well into the new year. High season begins in earnest by late December, when North American winter refugees arrive in force.