Puerto Rico 2021 Trip Summary

The eastern coast of Puerto Rico with lots of seaweed
Old Town San Juan, Puerto Rico
Sunset at the Copamarina Beach Resort
colorful Culebra Divers - Puerto Rico
Flamenco Beach with its old abandoned tank - Culebra Puerto Rico
Scuba Diving with a spotted eagle ray

TRIP DETAILS

Trip length (including travel days) - 9 days

Time of year - February

Countries (Territories) visited - Puerto Rico

Cities/Locations visited and time in each:

  • Condado/Las Palmas - 3 nights

  • Rincon - 1 night

  • La Parguera/Guanica - 1 night

  • Culebra - 2 nights

  • Condado - 1 night

PATH WE TOOK

Fly Denver thru Orlando to San Juan (all one day)

Rental car on main island of Puerto Rico, Ferry to Culebra, then another rental car on Culebra)

Fly San Juan thru Orlando to Denver (all one day)

HIGHLIGHTS

The highlight of the trip for us was certainly the Scuba Diving on Culebra.

NOTES

We drove our rental car all around the perimeter of the island without any issue. When we ferried to Culebra, we rented another car there to get around and had no issues there either.

For friends looking to visit, we would recommend Rincon in the West (great surf spot and fun vibe with decent restaurants), the Copamarina Beach Resort & Spa in the South (beautiful resort with lovely rooms and great pools but not much else around it), and the island of Culebra in the East (the only part of PR we saw that really felt like “the Caribbean” with Flamenco Beach).

After all our pre-trip research which suggested we might find otherwise, we were pleasantly surprised with many parts of our trip:

  • The internet worked fine everywhere we went.

  • The rental car process was no problem and very convenient (right at the airport).

  • Other than 1 person at a fast food restaurant, everyone spoke English.

  • The roads and signs were in as good of condition as many places in mainland USA.

  • We didn’t feel unsafe anywhere (granted we are not out late at night and generally stuck to the beaten path!).

OUR NOT-SO-FAVORITE THINGS

To be perfectly honest, this wasn’t our favorite destination for a number of reasons. In general, we didn’t find much endearing about Puerto Rico - the food was so-so (lots of fried options), the beaches (other than Culebra) were nothing special and it was always windy, and the towns felt old and run-down.

WHY WE PICKED THIS LOCATION

After a year of not traveling due to Covid, we had an itch to go somewhere…ANYWHERE! In early 2021, Puerto Rico felt like a good option since it’s NOT International (from a Covid testing requirement perspective), but felt different enough that it almost could be.

We were able to schedule some Scuba Dives, which was important because we hadn’t been since almost a year prior, so we wanted to keep that muscle memory.