Santo Domingo

Hot mess of a city, full of noise, fumes and trash. More of a dysfunctional, crowded urban sprawl than an organised city.

Santo Domingo was worth visiting for a few days, but I wouldn't live there. Locals are generally friendly to westerners, including many of the stunningly beautiful women. I found no shortage of excellent and mostly healthy food in the beautiful and clean Zona Colonial historic neighborhood, which also had modern amenities and great salsa bars with friendly locals. Most of the rest of the city is a filthy and decrepit dump. There are some nice beaches 30+ min away from the city. When using the "wawa" bus system, you can flag down and exit a bus anytime, but I definitely recommend renting a car while here because its timetables can't be found on the internet, its stations are not signed, its bus lines are not labeled clearly, it's never on schedule, and it's generally not worth your time. Unfortunately, as another commenter stated, there is definitely quite a bit of racism towards Haitians here. And there is little to do outside of the Zona Colonial.

I lived in Santo Domingo for two years. The people can be warm, friendly and genuine most of the time. There are many exceptions to this though where some will beg or try to scam you and take your money. You will really need at least basic Spanish to get by here, as 98% of the population do not speak any English... this is not an exaggeration. Culturally, it is conservative (partly because it is a Catholic country... partly because it's a pretty stale island in terms of ethnic diversity). Interestingly, cultural influences here are mainly American (baseball, big cars, fast food etc.), as there is little Spanish culture here... save for the language. In my opinion, the city is an umitigated dump. It's really not worth coming here. There is trash everywhere. The traffic is horrendous and is saturated almost all day. The public transport system is not fit for purpose and the metro only serves a small number of stops... none of them anywhere you'd want to go. Car horns, car alarms, sirens, revving engines and building alarms are constantly ringing in your ears. Drivers are aggressive and will run you over if you're not careful (common courtesy does not exist on these roads). Air quality is terrible. There are regular fires at the local landfill site which waft vast clouds of noxious fumes into the city. There is barely any greenspace (and what little there is is an overgrown, unloved garbage dump). There is no beach (nearest one, which isn't that great, is at least 30 minutes away). The diversity of food and availability of healthy food when eating out or ordering in leaves much to be desired (you'll be fine if you love American junk food, Mexican, Venezuelan, Italian and Japanese... other than that, there's nothing really to eat and it becomes a bit limited after a while). Almost everything is fried and full of salt... heavy on the meat and light on the veg. There's a tipping culture here but the quality of service is generally quite poor with no-one really giving a s**t. There are very few convenience foods in the grocery stores, meaning you will have to make all of your meals from scratch (which is a good thing, but sometimes you just want to have a microwave or freezer meal when you can't be bothered to cook). A lot of Dominicans are quite vain, obsessed with appearance and status, while there is an obvious undercurrent of racism towards Haitians and Venezuelans, coupled with a segregated class system. The government is corrupt and takes around 15-20% in income tax, however, there are no visible returns on this, as the roads are terrible, greenspace is a dump, schools are neglected, healthcare is a health hazard and the police have barely any presence. The peso is increasingly worth less than the dollar (with a 15% drop against the dollar in the last three years alone), meaning, what you earn here is worth increasingly less and less elsewhere. Overall, it's a pretty grim place that feels 30 years behind the rest of the developed world where the only saving graces are the weather and some nice people, I guess.

Been to Santo Domingo sooooooooooo many times lived there really cool city chaotic lol Dominicans are friendly but can also be very sneaky, even their own people say don't trust us LOL but meet wonderful people but just like ever where else be careful stay alert its some what expensive if you let the "chapiadores" run your pocket and go clubbing every night it can get expensive

I have been living in Santo Domingo and it is great. Almost all what they say is true.