The Dominican Republic's outdoor geography spans three mountain ranges, 1,600 kilometres of coastline, and the highest peak in the Caribbean — Pico Duarte at 3,098 metres, a two-to-three day highland hike through pine forest and páramo above the cloud line. Los Haitises National Park in the northeast is a flooded karst landscape accessible only by boat, where mangrove channels open into bays ringed with cave paintings and nesting frigatebirds. The Samaná Peninsula offers humpback whale watching from January to March with some of the most accessible breeding ground access in the world. The Cordillera Central interior carries a cooler, quieter register very different from the coastal resorts. Tours by locals who know the landscape beyond the obvious map pins reveal the hidden gems. It really hits differently.