Dominica Wants to Attract Tourists With a Brand New Long Trail

Posted by Jeff on Feb 26, 2016 @ 8:46 am in Hiking News | 0 comments | Last modified: February 26, 2016

Dominica is not to be confused with the Dominican Republic. That country produces fine cigars (like Cuba, its neighbor). Dominica, a much smaller country in the Windward Islands 280 miles east of St. Croix, exports nothing of consequence. The steepness of its mountains thwarted logging, its banana industry collapsed after losing battles with fungal blights and bigger Central American producers, and its rum is just so-so.

Nor does Dominica attract many tourists; at least, not compared to other Caribbean destinations. In the British Virgin Islands, 300 miles away, tourism accounts for 58 percent of the GDP. It’s just 25 percent here. Dominica’s mountainous jungle and cliffy shorelines don’t attract the typical Caribbean vacationer seeking talcum-soft beaches (of which Dominica has none). Even its primary airport remains small-scale, because there’s no place on the island flat enough for long, jumbo-jet runways.

So instead of courting global resort chains, this country of 72,000 started branding itself as “The Nature Island” in 2006. With 41,303 acres preserved as wilderness (about 20 percent of the country), Dominica contains more protected lands than anyplace else in the Caribbean, and is said to be the only Caribbean island that Christopher Columbus would still recognize today (in fact, its unspoiled landscape attracted Pirates of the Caribbean film crews in 2005 and 2007). Its snorkeling and diving rank among the best in the world (find both at Champagne Reef). Dayhikes lead to geothermal marvels such as 198°F, 200-foot diameter Boiling Lake and the fumarole-ridden wasteland known as the Valley of Desolation.

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