Punta Cana Airport to Miches

Miches has almost nothing to do with Punta Cana — not the beaches, not the province, not the drive. It sits in El Seibo, a completely different province, and getting there from Punta Cana takes a good hour and a half by car, much of it on winding roads well past anywhere else on this list. Yet you'll still find hotels here marketing themselves under the Punta Cana name. The truth is, the only overlap you'll ever share with Punta Cana is the airport you both fly into.

For most of its history, Miches was a quiet fishing town, known mainly to Dominicans for Playa Esmeralda — long considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the country. That beach is now the site of the newest resort development in the Dominican Republic, with international brands moving in on a stretch of coastline that was untouched just a few years ago. It's also the most isolated of any zone on this list: no clubs, no supermarkets, no bars outside your resort, nothing to walk to. If you stay here, your entire vacation happens on the property.

What you get in exchange is scenery that's hard to match anywhere else in the country. Playa Esmeralda sits inside a large, sheltered bay, so unlike the open-Atlantic coastlines further north, the water here stays calm and mostly wave-free — closer to a Caribbean-style beach despite technically facing the Atlantic. Just don't book a resort in Miches expecting to be anywhere near Punta Cana. You won't be.