Puerto Rico. Travel Ideas for the Perfect Island Vacation!

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so it's hot but we finally made it took a little while we're tired but we're glad that we can enjoy the sun and the palm trees and now we just need to get a car and move all of this stuff so Puerto Rico is made up of four main islands that are located in the Caribbean the islands are considered a U.S territory they use dollars you don't need a passport if you're traveling from America but since everything's in Spanish you feel like you're in a completely different country the first thing you need to know is that you need a car to go anywhere in Puerto Rico driving there is chaos so here are a few tips to be prepared no one uses blinkers and you could be cut off at any time driving on the highway people either go 20 over or 20 under the speed limit distances there are written in kilometers but speed limits are in miles per hour so it can get pretty confusing and then it turns out that the left lane is the slow lane on the highway some of the roads are in bad condition and there are deep potholes everywhere I think that's all we have for driving tips so now let's look at what Puerto Rico has to offer obviously the first thing you think of when visiting an island are the beaches Puerto Rico definitely doesn't have a shortage of beaches with approximately 700 miles of Coastline unfortunately due to strong Riptides not all of these beaches are suitable for swimming so here are some places that we found you can swim at Condado was our least favorite Beach it's very crowded there's Merchants everywhere and parking is expensive you can swim there but you need to be careful because there are strong undercurrents in certain spots on the other hand it's located right in the center of San Juan so it's close and very easy to get to there are also umbrellas and beach chairs for rent which is very convenient foreign as you can tell from the name Cascada means waterfall in Spanish it's located on the west side of the island about two hours from San Juan it's just a short five minute walk down to the bottom where there you can swim in a pool under the waterfall which apparently is called a plunge pool I had to look that one up or if you're feeling brave you can even Cliff jump [Applause] foreign any case this can be a nice Midway stop if you're driving across the island as there's also a cafe located right next to it [Music] crashboat beach is on the Northwestern shore of Puerto Rico it got its name crashboat as it used to be a military port for the former Ramey Air Force Base where they used to launch crash boats to rescue downed air Crews off the coast now it's a beautiful public beach where you can sit relax eat listen to music or watch the beautiful sunset over the ocean [Music] [Music] so sea of beach is located on the southwestern most hip of Puerto Rico and is about a three hour drive from San Juan besides the long drive getting to the beach was interesting the last few miles of the trip you have to go on a pretty sketchy Swamp Road and I wouldn't recommend going there in a regular car I mean some did but I'm not even sure how they got there since there are tons of large potholes and some muddy and flooded areas oh and a couple of tips if you actually decide to go and risk it first parking there is very limited see if there's a spot here so make sure you get there early or you may need to walk a few miles to even get to the beach also they close the road pretty early and you could get trapped there if you don't pay attention so make sure you look at the signs and finally there are no bathrooms anywhere within a few miles but despite all that the speech is awesome the water is warm and calm with plenty of soft white sand and since there's such limited parking the beach never gets too crowded but we're going to the lighthouse first because it's not windy and hopefully we can put the Drone up and fly a little bit [Music] thank you overall this beach is worth checking out and it ranks in our top three favorite beaches of Puerto Rico our next Beach takes a little bit of explanation before we can show it to you so for our second overall favorite Beach we chose Flamenco Beach this beach is actually regularly listed in the trip advisor's top 10 beaches of the world so of course we had to check it out for ourselves since the beach is located on the island of calebra it takes a bit of planning to get there there are a few ways to travel to Flamenco but this is the best way to visit the island especially if you're on a budget first we had to drive about an hour to sibo which is on the east coast of the main island where there we caught a ferry to Culebra a side note on the ferry they only have a few sailings each day and you definitely need to purchase tickets ahead of time because they sell out as soon as they're released oh and also don't miss the ferry back or you can get trapped on the island there is a hotel on the island that we saw but there's not really much there besides that so you don't really want to get trapped there the ferry does take longer than flying but hey you get a cruise for only five bucks which isn't really bad in my opinion once you get to Culebra your adventure still isn't over because then you need to take a taxi bus to the beach which only takes about five minutes to get there and it costs about 10 bucks a person then you finally get to the beach and it's easy to understand why it's in the top ten I mean why don't you see for yourself [Music] [Music] [Music] later you know when you imagine the perfect tropical beach you think of blue warm water a soft Sandy Beach and a lot of palm trees well that's locio Beach this is one of the many reasons lokia was our favorite Beach it also is only 40 minutes from San Juan there's lots of parking it has restaurants where you can get some great street food has showers and bathrooms right on the beach and it's spacious and long we thought it was just perfect [Music] thank you one of the best things about lokio is all the restaurants and drinks that are located right on the beach like after a couple hours of swimming and Sun Tanning you can go and get yourself a nice cold pina colada or you can even get a coconut that's cut right in front of you there's also tons of street food that you can try and we pretty much tried everything while we're there and we're actually pretty surprised about Puerto Rican food we expected it to be spicy like most Hispanic cuisine is but it wasn't like that at all and everything they had was deep fried but some of our favorites had to be the tacos so the tacos are really good doesn't taste like a regular taco it's really like fluffy the SE filled with meat they fill them with like crab and fish I think shrimp too but it's all deep fried so it's crunchy but then soft on the inside and the meat season really well it's really good it's like corn flour and the guy said it's stuffed with cheese let's try it it's not bad it's good it's just different let's go corn flour and it's sweet and has a little piece of cheese inside so it's like sweet cheesy corn dog and the Baka laitas which are these thin slices of cod fish that are that deep fried oh and we had to try the Mofongo as it's one of Puerto Rico's most famous dishes we didn't like it too much but I mean it's worth trying maybe you'll like it more than we did another surprising part of Puerto Rican Cuisine is just how many barbecue places and pizza joints there are I mean I feel like we saw one on almost every block and barbecue is so popular there that there's even a region called the pork Highway this is a couple Mile Stretch along Route 184 in the guavate region where there's dozens of lechoneras the Chun by the way in Spanish means Pig and that is what these places are famous for they'll slow roast an entire Pig for over eight hours and serve it with other traditional dishes we decided to stop here to try it out for ourselves sweet flavor and it has different kinds of meat well not kind of different parts I guess well this is just pork it has a very salty taste so if you don't like really salty pork I don't like it but I do but with the hot sauce it really balances out the salt overall we especially love the rice dish arroz con gandules topped through their homemade hot sauce the pork itself was pretty salty but had a good Smoky flavor to it but this is definitely an area of Puerto Rico to check out if you love barbecue and want some authentic cuisine so we just got finished eating at this place right here Manny's Pizzeria um it's probably about 30 minutes outside of San Juan and Trujillo Alto that's where we're staying right now when we went in here we were greeted by the owner he even offered us a free drink and the hostess everyone was super kind the owner and his wife came very very nice people and they're just talking to us asking where we're from but it was a really nice experience to support a local business and also just have that cool family service just a really nice place and we definitely recommend checking out the food is really good they have pizza Burgers like everything but it's owned by a local guy who lives here so great place definitely check it out we like this place so much we went a second time not just for the pizza though but for the Pina Colada that they make now if you didn't know pina colada was created in Puerto Rico and Manny's has the best on the island we tried a ton of them on our week there and not even the restaurant where the Pina Colada was created in San Juan was as good so try for yourself and get some delicious pizza you won't regret it something [Music] upstairs [Music] for those of you who enjoy history and architecture then Old San Juan is the place for you you can start your tour of the City by exiting the Red Gate and taking a stroll outside the city wall later you can wander the cobblestone streets find a restaurant or enjoy some ice cream under the hot Caribbean Sun along with all that you can go and explore an old Spanish portraits San Juan actually has two of such fortresses pistolo San Felipe Del Moro and Castillo San Cristobal the first El Moro traces its Beginnings back to 1539 and served as a military stronghold through World War II it was in use all the way until 1961 where it then became a U.S National Historic Site and all of Old Town was declared a UNESCO world heritage site a ticket to El Moro also will get you into Castillo San Cristobal which is located about a 15-minute walk to the east of el Moro after many attacks in the 1600s San Juan began cheering up their defenses by constructing some crystal ball the three level 110 000 square meter Fortress took 150 years to complete and is considered the largest Fortress built in the New World [Music] there's so much to explore in history to learn at these fortresses you could easily spend a couple of days learning about San Juan's complicated past [Music] thank you so we are what a kilometer yeah out of Al Yankee National Forest which is the only rain forest in the United States oh really yes well kind of in the United States in its territories thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign Puerto Rico had way more to offer than we could have ever imagined tropical beaches great food intriguing architecture and Majestic nature we'll definitely be returning here again someday we hope you can visit as well but most importantly just get out of your house and go somewhere make some memories [Music]

Channel: Travel On High

Views: 162,614

Keywords: Drone Footage, Aerial Videography, 4K Footage, From on High, travel vlog, vlog, travel recomendations, Architecture, @travelonhigh, travel, on, high, travel On High, travelonhigh, Puerto Rico, San Juan, El Yunque, National Forest, Beach, Cuisine, travel tips, where to go, pork highway, what to do, food

Id: 7rcMe52F-tc

Length: 18min 43sec (1123 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 30 2022