Traveling to San Juan with some friends next month. I know nothing about the place or anything cool to do while I'm there. Any anons have experience in PR? Any tips on things to do, things to avoid, and places to see?
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I'd like to know, too
Things to do: el junque forest. There is a badass natural water park an old guy runs on his property. A local told where it was but i dont remember except it is on the N side of the forest at the base of it.
Things to avoid: puerto ricans.
Things to eat: they got good fish. Also pinchos - chicken skewers so fing good.
West coast water is super nice, carribean. The rest of the beaches mediocre to suck. Overall its a good introduction to the 3rd world.
Localgay here. The most important questions for you will be:
>how long are you staying?
>car or no car?
>can you cancel accommodations if you already made them?
One thing to keep in mind is PR nightlife runs on a schedule, we all sort of unanimously agreed X is the spot to go to on Y day so when its busy its PACKED but means other spots will be much easier to access. Ideally, your vacation should be scheduled as:
>Sun-Wed: Beach bumming and nature tourism
>Thurs: Clubbing at Club Brava in Isla Verde or Jazz night @ Casa de Montecristo in old san juan (vsj)
>Friday: La Placita en Santurce
>Saturday: Old San Juan
You can also do a sunday chilling at Condado and Ocean Park for a beach and modernish beachfront downtown. It used to be the spot to go to on Fridays but then people moved over to La Placita. I'll give you the full rundown in the next few posts but for now:
>Crime
Stick to touristy areas and you're fine, do not go to Rio Piedras (area near Uni of PR), do not go to La Perla in vsj. Avoid caserios and residenciales entirely.
>Car
Expect no turn signals, drive assuming someone beside you will cut you off and leave them space accordingly.
Now, on to actual specifics...
"Downtown" includes: VSJ, Condado, Miramar, Santurce. Santurce and Miramar are a bit sketchier, but safest the closer you are to Av. de la Constitucion. Miramar's food truck spot is OK, santurce's Lote 23 is better. In miramar you primarily want to hit up Calle Cerra for restaurants and some bars like Machete (its also streetwalker central for coomers). Closer to the bridge to vsj you'll have Bar La Unidad which is great.
>La Placita
Go to La Penultima and Jungle Bird as your best bars. Seafood at Tasca el Pescador. Local food at Santaella. Best food (and decent wienertails) at La Picara by Chef Xiomi. You can kind of ignore the rest unless you like local dives rather than good drinks.
>Condado
Ashford Ave will be your main walking street. You can rent kayaks or paddleboards and hit up the lagoon, you can also just go to the beach but it's best to enter in Ocean Park. Calle Loiza (loiza street) has great food all over, and decent bars. El Tap and Bar Bero are pretty good drink spots. La Bodeguita de Manolo hidden behind the Sobao sandwich shop is a good food stop closer to Condado nightlife. If you just want a sandwich, Pinky's is great. Practically anything in Calle Loiza foodwise is kino.
>Isla Verde
Not really my hangout since I stick more closely to traditional downtown. It's got nice beaches though and there's been a bit of a revival for restaurants and bars as they try to modernize for tourists in the hotels. My experience here was club brava and then right back home after a night clubbing. Cannot make much recs here, sorry.
>VSJ
The best part of downtown by far. Packed on Saturdays so go in the day for tourism and then stay until night for drinks. Best nightlife is in Calle San Sebastian and you should go the following:
La Factoria (go behind saloon doors next to the bar, it's got extra themed bars inside with A/C, including a salsa dance bar and an EDM bar that opens last at 1030-11pm) and Casa de Montecristo (high end cigar lounge with the best stocked bar on the island) are must visits. Casa de Montecristo alone is worth spending several hours, if not a full night, even if you don't smoke cigars because the ambiance and drinks are the best (live jazz performances on Mon and Thursday around 8 or 9pm), it's my go to destination every single weekend. Taverna Lupulo is the beer hall of choice with an open air indoor patio. El Batey and La Verguenza are the dives of choice. Foodwise, there are tons of great spots here, too many to recommend, but La Lanterna is kino NYC tier Italian food.
>Nature tourism
El Yunque is a big hit but it's strictly regulated entry now after hurricanes fricked it, major repairs ongoing and some trails are closed entirely. Best to do unregulated entry at the bottom by entering from downtown's west --> east drive to Broken Bridge, then doing that road and hitting up stops along the way. Go in a swimsuit, take a dip in the rivers, stop at Las Pailas and pay the guy to hit up the natural water slides behind his home like another anon said. From there, go eat at La Parrilla in the kioskos de Luquillo and drive to Fajardo for a kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay at night.
Other spots to consider:
>Mar Chiquita
>Cueva del Indio
>Poza del Obispo
>Cueva Ventana
>Arecibo Observatory (if you want to see a hueg telescope)
>Dry Forest of Guanica (for desert biome hiking)
A good way to beach bum for cheap is to get an airbnb at Palmas del Mar, preferably one in Marbella (use google maps to see where this is when booking on airbnb). I took some american friends on a PR trip for a week and we spent our Sun-Wed here. It has no nightlife but there is no better way to spend a few days. Stop at a costco, buy tons of food and booze, deck of cards and just swim, eat and drink all day. You can also pay to use the golf course there. Renting a car is highly recommended if you want to ever leave downtown (since you'll be ubering everywhere there anyway) but uber outside of downtown is hard to come by and long trips are even more difficult to plan out (long being over 15-20 mins driving). Rio Grande is also good for beach bumming though you'll probably need to get a hotel room at that point. Wyndham Rio Mar is the go to but the St. Regis is the best one, both are close to the rainforest too for that daytrip. Dorado is another option for beach bumming. If you dont want to leave downtown, then Ocean Park beach , El Escambron (has 2 beach access areas, the point behind the sixto escobar stadium is the better spot) and Isla Verde are your go-to stops.
got it wrong and he missed the best beaches. Out west you have Rincon which is surf haven, but that's it, nothing else to see/do here. The most kino beaches are off the main island, so take a Catamaran to Caja de Muertos (south by Ponce/Salinas, caribbean sea) or Icacos and Palomino (west off fajardo, Atlantic Ocean). Additionally, if you can get ferry tickets, do an overnight at Culebra and hit up Flamenco Beach. Vieques is another ferry stop but not as nice beach-wise, and the bio bay there isn't as good anymore since they banned swimming in it. You can do some boat tours in La Parguera that will let you dive in the bio bay but its far and there is nothing else to do there besides kayak touring through kays during the day. You will need to overnight there if you want that dip.
One thing I'll mention now is to avoid wearing shorts when going out (day or night), there is no easier way to spot a tourist than to see someone wearing shorts. It's hot as frick, but jeans or khakis and a shirt (long sleeves with the sleeves rolled back or a polo) are the way to roll. You only wear swimsuits out for the day if you're going swimming, do not go in swimsuits out at night.
Lechoneras are worth going to though they're out of the way, Lechonera El Cuñao is my go to near Cayey for staple local food like Morcillas (blood sausage), rice and beans, rice and longaniza (local red sausage), amarillos (caramelized sweet plantain), tostones (fried plantain) and Lechon (spit roasted pork) as its main seller. Go for an early lunch (11-1130). In some seafood spots like Cayo Caribe go for Fried Red Snapper and Lobster as must haves. Mofongo (fried plantain bowl stuffed with X) is THE national dish, I'm a sucker for seafood mofongo but others like stewed beef (ropa vieja) or chicken mofongo. You and your friends should go to Bottles for a meal there, family style portions, massive plates and everyting is good there, wine everywhere. It's expensive but so good they don't take reservations, go early for lunch or dinner. Churrasco (skirt steak) is the steak cut of choice on island. Pulpo a la gallega is very popular in places with spanish influence.
Restaurant recs: Bottles, Cayo Caribe, Bodeguita de Manolo, Wicked Lily, Molinis, PROLE, Santaella, La Picara, Bodegas Compostela.
Cafe Cuatro Sombras has the best espresso (actually strong shit), local coffee is pretty damn good actually, Caracolillo is a great type of coffee bean to look for. Oh and Los Piñones is a good drive for street food and beach.
Post trip details/plans/itinerary/accommodations, I'll tell you where you fricked up and where you did good.
This short thing is so wrong lmao, you're OK wearing shorts.
People are going to know you're a tourist regardless of what you're wearing.
>Arecibo Observatory (if you want to see a hueg telescope)
Ya ahi no hay na papo.
Thanks anon, super helpful!
People are going to be welcoming and nice, if you don't go where you're not supposed to.
If you are getting a bad vibe, follow your gut feeling.
If there's white people around and there's women walking dogs and shit... you're most likely in a good area lol.
Go to Piñones, and try out anything and everything that seems tasty or interesting.
People will welcome you to help if you're polite and ask, most Puerto Ricans like to help visitors if they aren't behaving like morons.
Don't trust that people will speak English... older people (40+ year old) are likely not going to know English, but will know some things... maybe.
If you really need help, then ask a younger looking person, since chances are they will know English, but you know, that's still a gamble to be honest - depending on where you are.
PRicans are very handsy and touchy, so if you make friends hopefully you're not a moron about socialization and personal space.
Women say hi by kissing you on the cheek. Don't be moronic and think that they're hitting on you just because of that. They are just being polite.
You're a gringo, so be polite and go with it.
Learn some Spanish, even if it's a tiny bit. It will help. Also it's not that hard, so don't be a lazy moron.
Good luck brother, you will have fun and a good time.
Regarding English, the local language is spanglish so we will randomly toss in english words every now and then. You can kind of get away with using those words to communicate a bit if you can identify which are often fillers. No one will ever ask for an encendedor back home, they will straight up go "tienes un (do you have a) lighter?" every time.
>kiss on the cheek
its the air on the side of the cheek, not your actual skin, but yeah this is standard hello
>handsy and touchy
facts
>if you need help
just use your phone, there's no roaming charge or new sim card needed because technically america
tourist or woman detected
pense q lo arreglaron, pero hablando claro siempre ha sido medio meh ir pa ya, solo es un crater con una mierda colgando en el medio
>pense q lo arreglaron, pero hablando claro siempre ha sido medio meh ir pa ya, solo es un crater con una mierda colgando en el medio
It will probably never be rebuilt.