Active Pursuits

Beaches

One of the Caribbean's great beaches stretches along the Costa del Coco, or Coconut Coast, covering more than 32km (20 miles) of brilliant white sand. The major beaches include Playa Macao, Playa Cortecito, Playa Bávaro, Playa Punta Cana, and Playa Punta Juanillo. The all-inclusives have staked out the best beachfront properties, so everything is done for you here, including unlimited access to food and drinks and watersports concessions at each hotel. For facilities, bars, and restaurants, you can use the hotel at which you are a guest. This beachfront is the stuff of travel magazines, with perfect sand and lots of coconut palms. Under an almost constant blue sky during the day, European, American, and Canadian guests frolic at the gin-clear waters.

The beaches at Punta Cana are wide, gorgeous, and safe to swim offshore throughout the year. An improvised series of barricades run parallel to some stretches of the coastal road, prohibiting access to the various beaches fronting the hotels. Entrances guarded by security forces prevent nonguests from entering, since once inside you're entitled to unlimited food and drink.

Activities abound, not only scuba diving but snorkeling, windsurfing, kayaking, water biking, sailing, beach volleyball or soccer, even water polo, along with aqua aerobics and tons of children's activities.

Golf

The Bávaro Golf Course, at Barcelo Bávaro Beach, Golf & Casino Resort, Bávaro Beach (tel. 809/686-5797), is the best golf course on this end of the island, and bears the honor of being the golf course whose allure helped open the eastern D.R. to the tourist boom. Greens fees are US$65 (£33) for 18 holes; cart rentals are US$50 (£25). Guests of the hotel pay only 50% of greens fees. The course is open daily 7am to 5pm.

Punta Cana Golf Club, near the Punta Cana Resort and Club (tel. 809/959-4653; www.puntacana.com), is the best and most sought after of the four golf courses now flourishing in Punta Cana. Fourteen of its holes open onto panoramic views of the Caribbean Sea, and four play along the ocean itself. For 18 holes, hotel guests pay US$136 (£68), and nonguests are charged US$185 (£93). In summer, greens fees are reduced to US$96 (bp]48) for hotel guests, US$130 (£65) for nonguests.

Horseback Riding

Within Punta Cana, the guest services staff at your hotel can arrange horseback riding for you, but if they can't, consider an equestrian jaunt at the region's biggest stables at Rancho RN-23, Arena Gorda (tel. 809/747-7356 or -7538). It supervises as many as 125 horses that are stabled at three separate "ranches," each within a reasonable distance of one another. For US$56 (£28) an hour, you're guided on equestrian tours through groves of coconut palms near the beach and, in most cases, onto the beach. To reach it, you'll follow some clearly marked signs 3km (2 miles) through some of the wildest terrain left in Punta Cana, down winding sandy paths to a series of palm groves, to the site of these stables. Note: Many riders find the 2-hour equestrian excursion more tiring, with more mosquitoes and horseflies, than they expected.