Located along the North Coast’s route 5, only 20 minutes from the Puerto Plata International airport, Cabarete Beach is the perfect place for a laid back, and inexpensive, vacation. Restaurants line the beach, shops run along the main street, there is kite surfing, and several inexpensive hotels.

Restaurants
There are many restaurants to choose from along the beach. They generally have indoor, and outdoor, seating, and several are very good. Here are a few favorites:
If you’ve gotten tired of the traditional beans and rice dishes of the region, and just want a good beer and burger, Jose O’Shay’s Irish Pub is the place for you. There is also the option of pizza, cottage pie, steaks, and a few other tasty dishes. The dishes run from $10-20 dollars U.S.

My personal favorite place to eat is Casanova because it is inexpensive (happy hour runs from 4pm-7pm and gives you everything half off), and the ambiance is lovely. The most popular things on the menu are the pizzas and pasta dishes. During happy hour, a meal with a couple of beers will cost around $13 dollars.

On the main road, across from Ocean Dream Plaza is Bayerischer Hof. This restaurant offers savory pork fillets with mushroom and onion sauce, with the option of sautéed or mashed potatoes, or noodles. There is also a good Hungarian stew, Schnitzel, steaks, and other dishes. The prices run from $11-20 dollars.

Shopping
All along the Cabarete main drag, route 5, there are shops with anything you could want to buy, from ice cream and jewelry, to clothes and Dominican trinkets. All you have to do is walk along and peruse the shops as you go.

Kite Surfing
Cabarete is known worldwide for its kite surfing, even hosting the yearly Kiteboarding World Cup competition every 3rd week of July.

For those who want to learn how to Kiteboard, several surf shops along the beach offer classes for beginners to intermediate students. The classes are a little steep pricewise (around $249) so it’s probably best to be sure that it’s worth the time and effort to do it.

Hotels
For economy, comfort, and a good night’s rest, I really like the Casa Caribica Sanssouci hotel. A room with 2 beds, a bath, t.v., and kitchen is $20 dollars a night. There are seven Sanssouci hotels in Cabarete, but this one is my favorite. The others are nice enough, but are more toward the center of town where it is much noisier, and so I prefer to avoid them since I like a good night’s sleep.

How to Get There in Public Transportation
For those who have access to a car, it’s an easy drive along route 5. Even in public transportation it is one of the easiest beaches to reach. Any Sosua destined Caribe Tours bus will gets close. Upon arrival in Sosua, there are cars that are marked “Rio San Juan” and/or “Cabarete” and they go all the way through Cabarete.