Why a Trip to Puerto Rico Should Move to the Top of Your Bucket List

Puerto Rico is one of the United States’s few island territories, and it is an island ripe with wonderful options.

Its capital and main city, San Juan, is a city ripe with things to see, and with so much to offer, you’ll be hard-pressed to see all the other wonderful things the rest of the island has to offer. San Juan is a beautiful capital, complete with soft, sandy beaches, and a plentitude of cultural and historical attractions.

Puerto Rico is in another tourist boom, and has begun to bounce back from the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The tourist regions have bounced back especially, and the island is once again an amazing place to visit. However, there are many parts of the island that are still suffering, so a vacation there would do a lot to help the island with its recovery.

San Juan’s architecture is a mix of old colonial and contemporary, and the city’s Old Town, or San Juan Viejo, displays almost 500 years of Spanish colonial history, much of which has been lovingly restored and maintained throughout the years. There are many shops, restaurants, hotels, museums, and public squares that are well worth the exploration.

The most impressive part of San Juan Viejo is the Fuerte San Felipe del Morro, or El Morro, as it is known by the locals. El Morro is a fort that was built initially in 1539, with renovations undergoing for several hundred years afterwards.

Today, the fort is a labyrinth of ramps, barracks, dungeons, and tunnels. The outside of the fort is dotted with “garitas” or sentry boxes, which are unique to Puerto Rican forts and are something of a national symbol. A park surrounds the fort, which is stationed on a peninsula jutting off of the city, with the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery just adjacent to it.

San Juan, in addition to a historical city, is also a wonderful food capital with no shortage of delicious selections. Some trademarks of the island are mofongo, or mashed plantain, arroz con dulce, or sweet sticky rice, and arroz con gandules y lecho, or rice with pigeon peas and pork.

The cuisine is a blending of Native Tahino, Spanish, and American influences, and the combination is outstanding. Some standout restaurants are Boronia, Oceania, and Lote 23. Puerto Rico’s coffee is also wonderfully rich, because of their volcanic soil, and coffee shops dot the city waiting to share.

Just a quick drive from San Juan (you can rent a car here) is the El Yunque National Forest, which happens to be the only tropical rain forest in the United States. It’s a beautiful region of almost 30,000 acres of mountain terrain, waterfalls, and rushing rivers. The rainforest is named after the Taino god, Yucahu. With about 40 kilometers of trails, the forest is a wonderful hiking venture for both the casual and experienced.

Also hidden within the rainforest are some of the few archaeological finds of the native Taino people, who inhabited the island prior to the Spanish landings in the 1490s. Who knows, if you wander through the forest, you may stumble onto some of the Taino Petroglyphs, or the beautiful stone carvings etched into rocks near rivers or caves by the once indigenous people.