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The first French Canadian windsurfers arrived in 1984, creating a surfing paradise around the long strip known as Playa Cabarete and a couple of nearby beaches. As a result, a modern tourist town has grown up between beach and lagoon, catering not only to the surfing fraternity but also to a growing range of independent travelers. Surfing, both windsurfing and increasingly kitesurfing, are Cabarete’s main raison d’être , but there are many other activities on offer.

The advent of the Ocean World theme park in the vicinity of this formerly quiet fishing village, allegedly named after an infamous local pirate, has done much to change its ambience. But the delightfully curved horseshoe cove still draws many visitors to its generous expanse of sand and shade-giving trees. Expensive-looking villas gaze down from the hillsides, while behind the beach stands the up-market Hacienda Resort. The beach becomes much busier at weekends, when the surfing crowd comes in search of its hefty tides, but during the week you’re likely to be much more on your own.

Only a short taxi ride away from the busy center of Puerto Plata, the beach is just west of town, offering a complete change of atmosphere from the city itself and from the highly developed tourist strip to the east at Playa Dorada. There are no big hotels here, but rather a cluster of tasteful waterfront villas and condominiums, mostly owned by well-heeled locals or foreigners. The beach itself is an extensive strip of soft white sand with calm water and very safe swimming, even if shade is in short supply. The settlement also has a good range of refreshment options.

A perfect cove of white sand with mangrove forest surrounding it, this is one of the most beautiful beaches on the North Coast. Even so, it is still not overcrowded yet, and on a week day visitors are liable to be few and far between. At weekends there are more locals around, and you can buy fried fish on the beach. Protected by two rocky and forest-clad promontories, the small bay, known locally by the diminutive La Playita, has shallow clean water, ideal for children.

A long stretch of perfect golden-hued sand, bordered by forest and demarcated by high cliffs, Playa Grande is unsurprisingly attracting a good deal of tourist development after years of isolation. There are several large-scale all-inclusive resorts, including the Caribbean Village Playa Grande, which boasts a spectacular oceanside 18-hole golf course. The sea is more suitable for surfing than swimming, but at weekends the beach becomes very busy, especially at the end nearer Río San Juan, where food and drink are on sale. This spectacular beach is open to all.

The biggest town on the North Coast with a long and interesting history, Puerto Plata is sometimes overlooked by visitors in their all-inclusive resorts. This is a shame, because this bustling place has much to offer: not only historic sites but also a range of atmospheric bars and restaurants. The San Felipe Fortress is certainly worth a visit, as is the charming Parque Central, but the highlight is the amazing cable car ride to the top of Pico Isabel de Torres, the lofty mountain that looks over the city and ocean.

A left turn off the coastal Carretera 5 takes you into the small and still unspoilt village of Río San Juan, until recently an isolated rural outpost but now increasingly on the tourist map. There’s still a working fisher-man’s harbor, and the gridiron Barrio Acapulco is filled with boats and other fishing paraphernalia. The village’s beach is pretty but very small, so most visitors tend to head farther east down the coast. Rio San Juan’s relaxed and friendly atmosphere can be easily sampled in the cafés and restaurants that line the central Calle Duarte.

Like other North Coast communities, Sosúa’s transformation from a small fishing town and banana port to a pulsating tourist venue has been little short of astonishing. The place developed a rather unsavory reputation in the 1980s for the worst excesses of tourism, but has been cleaned up since and now offers a great mixture of nightlife and lazy days on the beach. Divided by the beach and bay into two separate and different barrios , Sosúa has a distinct tourist area called El Batey, where streets are lined with cafés and stores, and the more authentically Dominican district of Los Charamicos.