La Romana: a sugar town that ended up with a golf resort attached
La Romana is a real Dominican city built around a sugar mill, and the most famous resort in the country happens to sit next to it. Casa de Campo, Altos de Chavón and the Chavón river gorge are all here, as is an international airport that is the quiet way into this side of the island. What is not here is a resort strip — the beaches belong to the resort or are a drive away.
The city and the resort are two different things
La Romana itself
A working city of well over a hundred thousand people: a central park, a market, the sugar mill, and almost no tourism. Worth an afternoon for exactly that reason.
Casa de Campo
A vast private resort and residential estate next door, with three Pete Dye golf courses including Teeth of the Dog, a marina, a polo field, and its own beach at Minitas.
Altos de Chavón
A reconstruction of a sixteenth-century Mediterranean village on the cliff above the Chavón river, built in the seventies. An amphitheatre, an archaeological museum, cobbles and a view down the gorge.
Bayahibe
Twenty-five minutes east, and where the boats to Saona leave from.
The river and the village
The Chavón is the one genuinely dramatic landscape on this coast: a green gorge that has stood in for Vietnam and for the ancient world in films. Altos de Chavón sits on the cliff above it. It is a built replica, and knowing that does not stop it being a good hour — the amphitheatre has hosted serious concerts and the museum of Taíno objects is real and worth reading.
Boat trips run up the river from the marina, which is a different and quieter way to see it than from the top.
The beach situation
This is the part to understand before booking. La Romana does not have a public resort beach in the way Bávaro does. Playa Minitas belongs to Casa de Campo. The good public beaches — Dominicus and Bayahibe — are twenty-five minutes east. Isla Catalina is offshore and reached by boat.
So La Romana suits golf, the river, day trips and a quieter kind of stay. It does not suit someone who wants to walk out of a lobby onto a beach.
The airport is the underrated part
La Romana airport is small, international and about twenty-five minutes from Bayahibe and Dominicus. For a trip built around Saona, diving or golf, flying into it instead of Punta Cana removes an hour and a half of road at each end of the holiday.
Keep planning
La Romana · Punta Cana · Punta Cana Airport
Traveler questions
Does La Romana have a beach?
What is Altos de Chavón?
Is Casa de Campo worth it?
Should I fly into La Romana?
Is the city worth seeing?
Sources
- Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourismgodominicanrepublic.com · checked 2026-09-25
