December 2022 – 1 week
Puerto Rico is a great Caribbean island to visit. It’s a perfect location to escape New England winter with multiple 4 hours direct flights every day from Boston airport. This island offers a great mix of activities from the picturesque buildings of old San Juan, to the rain forest of El Yunque, with also the amazing beaches of Culebra, and the bioluminescent bays. In this post we are proposing a very packed one week itinerary to see a little bit of everything and spend an amazing week in Puerto Rico. Salute!
One week itinerary:
- Day 1: Arrival, and old San Juan
- Day 2: Tarpon fishing, Casa Bacardi, and old San Juan
- Day 3: El Yunque national forest, ferry to Culebra
- Day 4: Culebra
- Day 5: Culebra and ferry to Puerto Rico
- Day 6: Ponce and La Parguera ( Bio Bay)
- Day 7: From La Parguera to Arecibo and San Juan
- Day 8: San Juan and departure
Practical information for Puerto Rico:
- Language: Official language is Spanish, in San Juan and touristic areas you will always find someone speaking English. In more remote areas a little bit of Spanish will definitely help (or ask your phone to translate for you). We just speak few words of Spanish but had no issue during our travel.
- How friendly are locals with tourists: People are very friendly with tourists.
- How do you go from point A to point B? Car rental, taxi, Uber, ferry, electric scooter for San Juan, everything works. Uber is extremely affordable (less than 10usd for 15min). It’s available at the airport. Taxi is about 30% to 100% more expensive. Driving a rental car is not worse than driving in Florida or in Massachusetts.
- What to eat? Anything with plantain is usually very good. We didn’t eat a good Mofongo but had amazing grilled pork.
- What to drink? We tried multiple local beers, the Ocean Lab was the only one which grab our attention. Rum Cocktail are definitely more the local specialty.
Day by day Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival, and old San Juan
We arrive around noon and take a Taxi to our VRBO at Condado Del Mar (Taxi cost 21$). From plane landing to arrival at Condado it takes us about one hour mainly due to the waiting time for the luggage. We then go walking from Condado to Old San Juan. Our first stop is for a burger and a local beer at “The Place”. Which is also the occasion to see a world cup game. We then continue toward Old San Juan. The Expreso 26 road (closest to the ocean on the north) is very good for walking with a nice view over the Ocean. (If you don’t like walking, a lot of electric scooters are available).
In old San Juan we continue toward Castillo San Felipe del Morro using the Norzagaray road. This is a nice road to see Bastion San Sebastian, and La Perla from the top. We arrive just on time to the Castillo to enjoy a nice sunset. For dinner we try to find a nice place in old San Juan, but we don’t find a lot of activity after sunset and just grab few tapas before to go back to our rental in Condado for the night.
Day 2: Tarpon fishing, Casa Bacardi, and old San Juan
We starts the day early and take an Uber to Carolina to go tarpon fishing with Backwater Fishing. We arrive 20 minutes in advance and Tommy, our captain for the day is already ready. He invites us on board and we go to the lagoon. The morning boat ride is very cool with a lots of birds, some tarpons jumping and nice lights. The fishing part is unfortunately less enjoyable as we are not lucky with the tarpon. We have no wind to drift and get the bait far enough from the boat. We end up the trip with two hooks which happened during the end of the trip when the wind started. It was not a lucky day for fishing due to the wind but the captain and the boat ride was very nice. The captain extended the trip far beyond the 4 hours so we could hook something when the wind started.
After this fishing experience we go back to Condado Del Mar for a quick stop at Super Max to buy some food (we always like to visit local super market). We then head to Casa Bacardi for the Rum tasting tour.
In Casa Bacardi we are welcome in the outside bar with a first cocktail to wait for the tour start. The tour starts on time and contains a short rides in an open bus, some explanations about the Bacardi rum manufacturing process and history, and the rum tasting with the 4years, 8years, 10years and the special Rum available only in this location. There is also one local chocolate which goes very well with the Rum (We would have loved more chocolate). Our guide for the tour is Will. He is very knowledgeable and can answer all our questions. The rum tasting tour is a little bit expensive (75$ per person) but it is a good experience.
From Bacardi we take a Taxi to old San Juan. We stop by a bar to catch the end of the French – Morocco semi final. France winning and going to final will slightly modify our itinerary for day 6 to see the final. We also visit a little bit more old San Juan.
Day 3: El Yunque national forest, ferry to Culebra
We start by getting our car rental at the airport at 7:30. We then head to El Yunque national forest for a hike. Access to the forest needs reservation in advance in the national park web site with some tickets released 24hr before.
In El Yunque multiple trails are still closed. We decide to do the Mt Britton trail. This is a nice hike to get a taste of the rain forest. The hike starts on the road and is then on a small concrete path in the middle of the forest. We are able to see a lot of the rain forest trees and flowers and also an hummingbird. The top of Mt Britton is cloudy but it was somehow expected. Even with a clouded summit it’s a great experience. Going down from El Yunque we stop at few vista points and at Juan Diego creek which is a nice and very easily accessible water fall. (To know what is open or close you can download the El Yunque mobile application)
It would have been good to have more time to go to El Yunque peak but we need to catch a ferry to Culebra. On the road to Ceiba ferry terminal we catch a Mc Donald which is far better than the one we are use to have in New England.
We arrive at the Ceiba ferry terminal two hours in advance and park the car. The lady at the parking counter asks us to pay for 3 days in advance which is about 33$. We park the car and leave the parking ticket visible in the car as the cars around us. We then walk 5 minutes to the departure area. At the time of the boarding we show our tickets and go to a pre boarding area, and then to the ferry.
Preparing the trip I red some mixt reviews about the ferry terminal. Yes the parking cashier is not very friendly and yes the locals have some advantages. But by booking in advance online and by arriving in the terminal in advance we had a smooth trip.
In Culebra we get our room at El Navigante hotel and go walking at Carlos jeep rental to rent a golf cart. The golf cart is about 80$ per day. We also stop by a small grocery shop to grab few beers and some food for the dinner and next day breakfast.
Day 4: Culebra
We go first to Tamaringo beach with some breakfast that we bought the day before. Belly full we start snorkeling on the middle / north side of the beach. In this area we can see turtle eating the sea grass. We do a second snorkeling session in the middle / south part of the beach. In this area we see more corals, fishes and a sting ray. We also see some jellyfish, it scares us a little bit even if people tells us that they are not dangerous.
For our second stop we go to Flamenco beach. The entry for the golf cart and 2 persons is 9$ with the possibility to leave and come back. The beach is beautiful with lots of waves. Also it’s very fun to see the painted tank in the middle of the beach.
We had no local food yet so for our meal we go to Luncheon Criolla close to Culebra school. We take the pork asado which is delicious. It comes with some rice and one side to choose. No price are written on the menu, our two meals costs us 28$. We are short 1$ cash and promise to come back to give the missing money. The owners are very nice and give us good explanation in English about the different dishes, we would definitely come back to eat again their great food.
Our afternoon is similar to our morning, visiting beaches, doing snorkeling and enjoying the sun.
For the dinner we try a cocktail at Dinghy Dock and a dinner at La Cocina Del Navegante. We also enjoy a nice golden ale from Ocean Lab.
Day 5: Culebra and ferry to Puerto Rico
For breakfast we start by visiting Blac Flamingo Coffee. We take a double shot expresso and a Latte with two baklavas. This coffee is great, a lot of people are coming for the breakfast. After the coffee we drop our luggage at the hotel reception and go beach hopping again.
We come back in the afternoon to leave the golf cart, recover our luggage and take the ferry back to Puerto Rico. We are a little bit in advance and are able to catch the earlier boat. Back to Puerto Rico we head south west to an Airbnb for the night.
Two nights at Culebra was a very nice experience. We were able to relax, take our time, and enjoy the beach. If we were going back maybe we would have done a water taxi to Culebrita the first day and the golf cart to Culebra beaches the second day.
Day 6: Ponce and La Parguera ( Bio Bay)
We leave our Airbnb in the middle of the Mangrove near Coco to go to Ponce. We do a short walk around the Parque de Bombas. This is nice to see but I was expecting to have more to do in the city. Our challenge of the day is to find a good bar to watch the final of the world cup. We find that in the south of Ponce in El Mangoito. After the game (and the disappointing result as a French) we go west to La Parguera. Without the world cup we would have spend only 30 minutes in Ponce and would have tried to visit a little bit more the mountains north from Ponce.
After Ponce we go in the direction of La Perguera and stop by Bosque Estatal de Guanica. We try the hike around Tamarindo beach. This hiking area is not as good as we were hopping and we stop the hike after 1 mile. We then head to La Parguera to have a tour of the local Bio Bay with Parguera Eco Tours.
The Bio Bay tour starts at 7:30pm, we are 7 people plus a guide and a captain in a recent boat. After about 20 minutes of boat ride we arrive at the bay, some luminosity starts to be visible in the water from the boat and the guide tell us that we will have a magical night.
The boat stops, and we are invited to jump in the water. We are the only boat in the bay and the experience is amazing. You can move fast to generate a lot of luminosity or slowly to see each light. I really enjoy moving slowly and seeing the droplets of light along my skin. I was not sure what to expect about the Bio Bay tour, being able to swim in the bay is really an amazing experience. We were lucky to have a day with a good luminosity and we also had no moon because at this time of the year the moon starts to be visible only around 9:30PM.
Day 7: From La Parguera to Arecibo and San Juan
We have 4 hours of driving today from La Parguera to San Juan, and few cool stops. Our first stop is at Cascada Gozalandia, we arrive there 30 minutes after the opening. The parking is empty so we walk down to the water fall. We arrive at the water fall when a group is leaving, so we are able to enjoy this great place alone. The parking area looks very commercial but the waterfall is very beautiful. I would not go during a busy day but if you can enjoy it alone go for it. Leaving the parking we pay the 10$ fee and go for our next stop.
This next stop is Café Oro de Puerto Rico on our way to Arecibo. We try some coffees with Nutella and a Cubano sandwich. The coffees and the sandwich are great. We are now ready to see Arecibo Observatory.
In the observatory we park the car and walk up to the visitor center (about 15$ per person with online ticket available). The cashier explains us that we have to wait 15 minutes to have the video and the view of the observatory. A small exposition is also available, it gives information about the research done in the observatory. The video last 8 minutes and is a good presentation of the site and what happened. After the video we access to the terrace to see the destroyed observatory that we remember from 007 Golden Eye.
After the observatory we head back to the car rental at the San Juan airport and we take a Uber to our hotel for the last night in San Juan. We enjoy the sunset at Fortin del Escambron and find some food and drink close to the Caribe Hilton.
Day 8: San Juan and departure
Before our flight at 1pm we have time to visit San Juan. We go walking from Miramar to Old San Juan and continue to explore old San Juan with the Paseo de la Princesa and Paseo del Morro. We want to go to Los Paraguas de la Fortaleza but the road is closed so we will miss this iconic site (famous pictures with multicolor umbrellas above the street). Old San Juan is a very beautifully old city which leaves at the rhythm of the cruise ship.
This is the end of our trip. Going back to the airport is fast and we have no issue at the security. Be aware that there is an USDA check at the airport and any product with pork will most likely be taken.
Reflecting on the itinerary:
This is a packed itinerary to see a little bit of everything (but nothing fully). What we are missing in this itinerary is the west coast and the central mountain. The central mountain can be included during the day in Ponce if you only do Ponce in 30 minutes and don’t have a world cup final. This itinerary was done middle of December 2022 which is not a busy period. Plan your trip in advance for Culebra and try to avoid the busy period for the ferry.
Few stuff that surprised us in Puerto Rico
- There is a lot of music. Sometime people add music to cover the music from a neighbor.
- There are a lot of fast food and their ranking is surprisingly high (above 4 on Google). We tried Burger King and Mc Donald and they had better menu than in New England.
- On the highway people drive on the left line, they also use a lot the service lane just to stop.
- On the road we were impressed by the high number of advertisement for alcohol, especially around San Juan.
