Fall break found our family in Puerto Rico. I was honestly a little nervous traveling here because we had never been before and I didn't know a whole lot about the island. After traveling there....I would go back in a heartbeat! We loved it! The island is tropical, (which not all islands in the Caribbean are!) and the beaches are incredible. If you are considering a warm vacation anytime of the year - definitely check out this island.
A few of my travel tips:
1) We always like to leave our car when we travel at The Parking Spot. This extended stay parking option can be found in lots of large cities and we love using them. Totally convenient to book ahead of time to reserve your spot - I also wait to book until a sale happens, (they have lots of sales!) to save even more money.
2) We flew on United Airlines - I so carefully track flight prices through google flights and snagged tickets when I watched the pricing start to rise.
3) Another great tip is that I used an amazing travel agent - Laurie Carruth with Into Motion Travel to help us find a good place to stay and fun activities. She worked with our family's likes and dislikes and found solutions that fit our budget and our goals to explore and have a great time!
We were in Puerto Rico for 8 days/7 nights. The hardest part about traveling there is that it takes a while and you are headed "backwards" in time - so you would lose 2 hours if you are coming from the west side of America, like we are! We had 3 planes to get there and 2 of those were red eyes...so we were definitely ready to get to our AirBnb and relax! I find that traveling with a family of 5 - Airbnb's are the way to go - we all get to be together, we have a kitchen and we get to experience what it is like to live like the locals do. We stayed in Aquatika in Loiza, Puerto Rico (about a half hour from San Juan).
The condos in this development are all individually owned so some of them are nice and some of them are...not so nice - so definitely read those reviews online! The unit we stayed in was on the ground floor and had recently been remodeled and it was very nice and comfortable, (apartment 1001). They had a lazy river and some soaking pools throughout. A large pool with a slide was under construction, (which reading the reviews - this happens a lot) and so it was closed. Honestly, the beaches are so incredible...we didn't spend anytime in the pools. Because of the heat and humidity the stucco on lots of the areas on the outside of the buildings were in need of repair. It didn't bother us...but if you are wanting to go to a resort and just stay there the whole time...I would look to stay somewhere else. We used this location as a centralized stopping point and went off most days to cool excursions to discover the island.
The island is so colorful! We did an Old San Juan City Walking Tour through Viator and it was perfect to get the lay of the land of Old San Juan. The city has a few parking garages that make it pretty easy to park, (we used the Dona Fela parking garage). We went in the morning because it gets HOT! October is hurricane season so it was definitely muggy...but we had perfect sunny skies the whole time we were there.
Check out the cool cobblestones - there were ballast brought over from ships in Europe LONG ago and the locals used them in their streets. They have a cool blue hue to them. Let's get a closer look:
Isn't that cool? I loved how pretty the streets are. The buildings look incredible too - lots of brightly painted stucco buildings with black wrought iron decor:
Aren't they so pretty? I loved walking down all of the streets and seeing how picturesque everything was.
For lunch we stopped at Chocobar Cortes - which was a restaurant specializing in all things chocolate. We tried their chocolate shakes and I had the hot chocolate, (which is served with a slice of cheese!).
They even had chocolate ketchup, (which we tried and we didn't love...but I was glad I tried it!) We went for regular ketchup instead. They serve regular food as well - and we had burgers and sandwiches. I would say that their specialty is definitely their chocolate drinks, (although my kids did love their churros with chocolate dipping sauce) since our food I would just give 5/10...but the chocolate drinks were 10/10.
Their churros were made at the restaurant and my kids loved them.
After lunch, we continued onto the Spanish Fortress called, El Morro. For a small fee/person (teenagers were free) you also get to visit Castillo San Cristobal which is also in Old San Juan. Sadly, we ran out of time...so something to do next time we go to Puerto Rico!
El Morro was very cool - built facing the ocean to protect the island, it is an imposing structure. In 1983, the United Nations declared the fort a World Heritage Site. It's fun to walk around and see how people would have lived and worked there. Views are incredible and lots of fun picture spots.
There is a gift shop inside that sells drinks - but always a good idea to bring water with you! It is safe to drink the water in Puerto Rico - but they always liked to bring us bottled water at restaurants because they think tap water will ruin the taste of their food. We did drink the tap water in our condo...and it tastes just fine!
Our next day activities were pretty adventurous for us. We have never been surfing so we went and took a surfing lesson on yet another amazing beach - La Pared Beach in Luquillo. The instructors were so patient and kept us incredibly safe the entire time. Two of my kids found out that they really didn't like surfing! But one of my daughters is hooked and wants to surf every time we go to the beach from here on out. Alan and I gave it a really good try - surfing is hard! But those few times we stayed on the boards...were really fun. I would recommend the company we used - Surfing Puerto Rico - they were amazing. They also take pictures and give you copies of them all for free.
The beach was gorgeous though and the water was super warm. We found so many sand dollars all over the beach! Here was our collection that we brought back to our condo to dry out.
We grabbed some food (more about places to eat in another post!) and headed to our next amazing excursion - Bio Bay Kayak tour in Fajardo. We are now about 1.5 hours away from our condo....but there are only so many places in the world that you can see these organisms in the water...that it was so worth it to drive out to Bio Bay at Laguna Grande. We used the tour group - Pure Adventure Corp and booked through Viator.
This is not a great picture because it was so dark - but you get in double kayaks and paddle through a river in a mangrove forest to an enclosed lake. You are literally following a red light glowing in front of you from the person's kayak. We had a full moon that night so it helped a little in not running into the side of the river. Once you get to the lake, we went into the center of the lake. You could dip your hand into the water and faintly see streaks of light as you moved your hand. The tour had us bring all of our kayaks together and put a tarp over our heads to block out the light of the moon. Then when we dipped our hands into the water...they absolutely lit up and glowed! It was incredible! If you raised your hand, you could see your hand sparkle as the water dripped off. They are little micro-organisms that glow when the water is moved. Even the fish in the water can cause them to glow so you see the outline of fish! Imagine Avatar. So cool. Afterwards...we paddled back through the forest and then ended the tour. I would recommend this tour to everyone going to Puerto Rico - 10/10. It was amazing.
Check out more excursions in Part 2!