Boca Chica
Boca Chica is a fishing village that has had its ups and downs as a tourist destination, currently being a destination with few tourist attractions but which offers some services to spend a good vacation.
Boca Chica, located 30 kilometers from the capital, is considered by many as the beach of Santo Domingo. It is also close to Las Americas International Airport, which makes it an ideal destination to escape the hustle and bustle of the capital without giving up what Santo Domingo has to offer.
Boca Chica has a small population, small stores, restaurants overlooking the sea, a beautiful beach and you can easily find good value accommodation. If you are looking for all-inclusive hotels, Boca Chica is not your destination.
Places near Boca Chica
Boca Chica is located about 30 minutes from Santo Domingo, so you can go shopping or out at night in the capital. Las Americas International Airport is 15 minutes away and to the east you will find the towns of Guayacanes and Juan Dolio. Also nearby is La Caleta National Park, a great place for diving enthusiasts, one of the top five diving spots in the Caribbean, thanks to the Hickory, a steel ship sunk specifically in 1984 to create a safe habitat for endangered species.
History of Boca Chica
Boca Chica, began to be developed as a tourist destination during the time of dictator Trujillo, thanks to the wealthy class from the sugar industry. Its main promoter was Don Juan Vicini, a rich sugar industrialist. In 1950, the first modern hotel in Boca Chica was built by the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, called the Hamaca Hotel, today called Hamaca Coral By Hilton. Over the next ten years, the upper classes began to build their summer residences along the coast, which made Boca Chica very popular, both nationally and internationally.
What seemed to be the hot spot of the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean went into decline with the development in the 1970s of Playa Dorada (Puero Plata) and Sosua. It remained in the doldrums for 20 years, until new investors began building one hotel after another in the early 1990s. Today, Boca Chica has not regained the cachet it had in its early days, but it is back on the tourist trail.
Origin of the name Boca Chica
The beach of Boca Chica, located in the bay of San Andrés, is connected to the sea by two mouths, the western one is the larger of the two and is the one used by fishermen to get to the village of Andrés de Boca Chica, and the other mouth, the smaller one (la chica), connects the sea to the actual Boca Chica, hence its name.
