Las Terrenas beach cabana

Set on a quiet lane one street back from Playa Bonita, this 65-square-metre wooden cabana is the honest side of the Dominican Republic — coconut palms overhead, tiled floors, cross-breeze windows and a shaded porch with a hammock. The layout is two compact bedrooms, one bathroom, a simple open kitchen and a covered outdoor living space that becomes the main room for most of the year.

Las Terrenas is the Samaná peninsula's most cosmopolitan beach town — a small international community of French, Italian and Dominican residents, an easy-going café culture along the main road, and three of the country's finest beaches (Bonita, Cosón and Las Ballenas) within a five-minute drive. Foreigners can buy freehold in the Dominican Republic on the same terms as locals; closing takes a few weeks with a local lawyer and title insurance is standard.

The beach itself is a long crescent of pale sand backed by coconut palms, with warm year-round water and a small reef offshore for snorkelling. From January to March humpback whales calve in the Bay of Samaná — one of the great wildlife shows of the Caribbean. Boat trips to Cayo Levantado and the Los Haitises mangroves leave from the Samaná town pier, thirty minutes east.

El Catey international airport (AZS) is a one-hour drive with direct flights from North America and Europe in season. Punta Cana is three hours by road. Day-to-day supplies come from the busy Las Terrenas market and a supermarket in town; French bakeries and Italian trattorias line Pueblo de los Pescadores, the restored fishermen's quarter on the beach.