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Food Travel / Foreign Grocery Friday / Punta Cana Field Trip / Dominican Republic Travel / → All Tags

Foreign Grocery Friday: Peel 'Jelly Bananas' in the Dominican Republic

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Gummis. They are just so awesome. Like 'em or not, it's hard to deny that gummis are some of the cutest, easiest gifts to bring home from a trip, especially if we're talking unique Haribo shapes straight from Germany. But outside of Europe, gummis can adapt the local tastes too, which we discovered on our recent trip to the Dominican Republic, where we uncovered some Jelly Bananas from the back of a Gummi rack.

The taste: Ignoring the lascivious leer of the cartoon banana pictured on the package, we gave our tastebuds over to the addictive sweetness of these shockingly yellow treats. Sparkling with sugar crystals, they're very pretty to look at and luckily a heck of a lot tastier than the little Runts bananas.

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Prime-Plane-Spotting-Map / Plane Spotting / Punta Cana Field Trip / Dominican Republic Travel / Caribbean Travel / Islands / Island Travel / → All Tags

Some of the Best Caribbean Plane Spotting is in Mikhail Baryshnikov's Backyard

Typically when you talk about going plane spotting, it usually involves some stealth tactics like parking far away or camping out on a barren hillside for the perfect picture. Never do you dream that plane spotting could instead involve chilling beneath a palm tree, with a Cinnabon in hand, but it does if you're hanging out at Punta Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic.

Since the majority of the airport is open-air and thatched-roof, you have a view of the tarmac from almost every angle, but no better place than at the outdoor viewing area. It's a quick walk away from the food court (with its Wendy's, Cinnabon, Nathan's Famous and other more local chains), but it's close enough to the gates so that you can stand out there almost the whole time before your flight without missing the boarding announcements.

So how does Baryshnikov enter the pictures? Find out after the jump!

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Punta Cana Field Trip / Ecotourism / Green Travel / Dominican Republic Travel / Punta Cana Travel / Pools / → All Tags

The Best Resort Amenity in the Dominican Republic is an Eco-Park

If there is one thing you don't expect from a large Caribbean resort property, it's eco-consciousness. Large resort chains love to overdo it with gluttonous wastes of resources all for the pleasure of their guests, without regard for the environment in which travelers find the beauty of an area. Thus, on our recent trip down to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, we were thrilled to discover that a couple resorts are putting preservation and eco-travel efforts first, and even cultivating their own organic gardens for their restaurants.

We visited one resort in particular, the PUNTACANA Resort & Club, which has added an eco-park onto the list of their amenities, and it's become quite popular. The park, Ojos Indigenas, with lush vegetation, natural freshwater pools and residents like giant crabs, was discovered by accident and immediately given official protection. It is only open to guests of the PUNTACANA Resort, Tortuga Bay Resort and those with vacation homes in the resort, but if you're visiting the Punta Cana area and want to dive into the cool, fresh waters of one of the pools, you can also access it by taking the resort's segway tour, one of the only such tours in the Dominican Republic.

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Punta Cana Field Trip / Jetblue / PUJ / Airports / Dominican Republic Travel / → All Tags

Visiting Punta Cana Airport: Among the Most Unique Airports in the World

Only a few days ago, we gave you a quick peek into Punta Cana International Airport (PUJ) in the Dominican Republic, after landing on the inaugural Jetblue flight direct from New York. But now we have a comprehensive look at this extremely unique airport which, when it opened in 1984, was the world's first privately-owned international airport.

Now, with over 3 million visitors landing here per year, the airport is the third busiest in the Caribbean region, after Cancun and San Juan. Often Caribbean airports get a bad rap for having ugly terminals, out-of-date technology or just for being small and hot. You'll realize upon landing at Punta Cana however, that his airport is the complete opposite of those things. In fact, it gives major international airports around the world a run for their money.

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Punta Cana Field Trip / Jetblue / PUJ / Airports / Dominican Republic Travel / → All Tags

Do You Know That Julio Iglesias and Oscar de la Renta Own a Thatched-Roof Airport?

This morning, we walked off a flight and into airport paradise. You know we love a good airport with excellent facilities, and nothing could have surprised us more than what we found at Punta Cana Airport (PUJ) in the Dominican Republic. Thatched roofs of cana leaves arch over the baggage claim, Dominican dancers greet arriving flights, and the entire airport is open-air with no air conditioning (huge fans take care of that).

The Punta Cana Airport was only opened in 1984, and since then, passengers traffic to its breezy terminals has risen from some 3,000 per year to over 3,000,000. And—believe it or not—it's a privately owned airport, by the PUNTACANA group, whose chairman is designer Oscar de la Renta. Julio Iglesias also had a huge hand in the deal, but most of the credit goes to PUNTACANA President Frank R. Rainieri, a Dominican who started working on the airport in his 20s, and who obviously has a thing for thatched roofs.

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