The Dominican Republic is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea and has a population of over 11 million people. It's also extremely popular among tourists and attracted 10 million visitors in 2023. Many Canadians and Americans like to visit the island for all kinds of reasons from short vacations to spending the entire winter here to retiring on the island full-time. But what is the cost of living in the Dominican Republic if you're coming here as a digital nomad or retirement slow traveler? And what else should you think about before booking your travels?

Chris and I have rented an apartment in Las Terrenas on the northern side of the Dominican Republic for a month, and we've been taking short trips to other parts of the island as well. Let's look at prices across 6 different categories that we noticed as slow travelers and digital nomads.

But before we begin, just a few quick notes. The Dominican Republic uses the Dominican Peso as its currency, but we're going to give all our prices in US dollars. There is also a very large income gap here, and unfortunately many people live in poverty. For this video, we're going to be providing prices that slow travelers would typically pay in middle-income neighbourhoods.

Let's start with grocery prices. There are lots of grocery stores here, like Sirena which is owned by Walmart to local chains like National to small corner stores that are called Colmados. At National grocer in the capital city of Santo Domingo, we found a dozen eggs for $1.83, a loaf of bread for $1.78, and bananas for 35 cents a pound. Though prices can vary depending on where you are. For example, in Las Terrenas on the north side of the island, the same bread that was $1.78/loaf in Santo Domingo was $2.00/loaf. We were pretty surprised about the higher prices of groceries here and found we could easily spend $60-$70 per week on groceries for two people.

Onto Category #2, Rent. If you're looking to rent long-term in Santo Domingo, you can pay around $700 per month for a 2-bedroom apartment. But if you're staying only for a short time, or trying to get a place right on the beach in a town like Las Terrenas, you can pay more than that. In some cases, more than triple that number. Electricity here is also quite costly, and usually isn't included in your rent. Even if you're staying at an AirBnB, you might get a separate bill at the end for your electricity. You can easily spend $100-$200 per month on electricity, especially if you are running air conditioners at night or have a big fridge. If you're not careful and run your A/C all day it could cost even more.

And about electricity here. Depending on your neighbourhood, it can go out on a regular basis. In our apartment in Las Terrenas, the electricity goes out every two or three days. It usually cuts out for a second, comes back on, then cuts out again for another few seconds. If you're on a video call, this means you lose your internet and have to wait for the modem to re-connect before you can jump back into your meeting, which is obviously stressful if you're in the middle of an important presentation. Many homes have battery backups for this reason, and they can keep your home running even if the power goes out for a few hours.

Next up is Transportation. Transportation pricing can really vary here, depending on where you are and how you're getting around. Moto taxis, where you get on the back of a small motorcycle are very popular and cheap, but they usually don't come with helmets and we didn't try it out. Taxis can be extremely expensive in more touristy areas like Las Terrenas. We paid $70 dollars for a 25 minute taxi ride from the Semana airport to Las Terrenas. As a comparison, we usually pay about half that for a similar distance when we go to the Toronto airport in Canada. However, in Santo Domingo, Ubers and taxis are much cheaper. If you're driving a car, gas is about $4.60 per gallon or $1.20 per liter. Buses are also available to move you around to different cities on the island. We were paying about $5-$10 per person each way for inter-city buses.

Category #4: Personal Care. A gel manicure here is about $15 and buying things like toothpaste can be expensive at $4 or $5 for a basic tube. And don't even get me started on the $15 bottles of sunscreen.

Onto Restaurants. We found it very easy in Las Terrenas to spend $40 on a basic lunch. We would go into a seemingly casual restaurant and find most plates were around $15-$20 each. Yes, there are some cheaper places. Like we found this amazing fried chicken place, where for about $20 and Chris and I would get huge portions of food and enough leftovers to make a second meal out of it. But my point is that if you're wanting to go out for a less expensive meal, you need to look around.

And our last pricing category before we talk about a few other things to know before coming here is Entertainment. There are so many things to do on the island and many of them don't cost a lot of money. We took a lot of beach walks to enjoy the beautiful blue water. We did take a snorkeling trip one day. We paid $50/person for a 6 hour excursion.

In Santo Domingo, we toured the Tres Ojos park for $3.40 per person.

Walking around Zona in the central part of Santo Domingo is also free and has a super fun energy with lots of history.

Though there are some fun low-cost things to do in the Dominican Republic, if you're thinking about coming here, don't expect a much lower cost of living than places like Canada and the US. Some things can be cheaper, but many things are similarly priced. There are also other things to know before coming here.

Many people live in poverty or on limited incomes. Prices are similar to what they are in the states, but salaries can be lower. Talking to locals, we learned that the average teacher salary is only about $2000 per month. And if you're working as a bank teller, you might be only making about $500 per month.

The tap water here is not safe to drink. Bottled water delivery is easy to get and we pay a few dollars per jug, delivered right to our door.

The Dominican Republic can have a slightly lower cost of living than many places in Canada and the US, but in my opinion, if you're trying to save money, this might not be the right place to come. For us as slow travelers, being here took more from our budget than we anticipated. I'm very glad we came and enjoyed this beautiful island, and I can definitely see why it's such a popular place to visit. Just remember to budget appropriately if you're thinking about coming.

We've taken our slow travel lifestyle to Las Terrenas in the Dominican Republic. We've based ourselves in Las Terrenas on the north end of the island and are taking small trips from there. Over our last few weeks here as slow travelers and digital nomads, we've learned a few things and had some surprises. Here are 12 things we've learned during our time here.

#1 - It's way more expensive here than we anticipated. We just spent the last few months in the much less expensive country of Argentina, so coming here was a bit of a shock to our budget. A little yogurt at the grocery store was over $3 USD in Santo Domingo and even more expensive in Las Terrenas. We did an entire video on pricing here, so be sure to check that out. But one thing we learned is that you shouldn't expect prices to be much cheaper than many places in the US and Canada.

I've also learned that I have to be careful about getting overcharged for things. For example, last week I was buying two bottles of water at a colmado, which is what corner stores are called around here. The cashier told me it would be 50 pesos. My local dominican friend overhead the price and told the cashier to charge me the correct amount. Turns out I should have been charged only 40 pesos. That time, it wasn't a huge difference, but it can be much more.

#2 - You can't drink the tap water. This is pretty typical of a lot of places. And fortunately it was easy for us to get water delivered to our apartment in Las Terrenas whenever we needed it. We washed our dishes and took showers with the tap water but used bottled water for all of our drinking and for brushing our teeth.

#3 - Semana Santa or Holy Week, right around Easter weekend is a huge holiday in the Dominican Republic. Everyone travels around the country, the roads get very busy, and the prices for apartment rentals go way up. We were here over the week, and it's a lot of fun, but if you're here during that time, you'll need to plan ahead and stock up on groceries before shelves get emptied out.

And about planning the time of year to come, here's #4: It's rainy here. The actual rainy season is from May to November. But it can still be overcast and rainy during the dry season too. We found we had at least one rainy day per week while we were in Las Terrenas, though temperatures were hot and humid pretty much the entire time. And the climate makes your salt clump and causes metal salt shakers to rust.

Onto #5 - There are SO MANY beautiful beaches here. We were able to walk for miles and miles along the beach with no end in sight. And the water is so blue and warm.

Moving to #6 - Spanish is the official language in the Dominican Republic. And unless you're in toursity places, Spanish will be the only language spoken, with pretty much no English. And the Spanish here is FAST. But in Las Terrenas, there are lots of people that stay here for many months from Quebec and other parts of Canada and the US, so we were surprised to find a lot of English and French, in addition to Spanish along the beaches.

#7 - Maybe I should have known about this bit of history but I didn't. The north side of the Dominican Republic was the first place Christopher Columbus landed into when he found the Americas. Unfortuntely the rest is a sad story of the indigenous peoples being almost completely wipped out and slaves being brought in from Africa. But there is history of colonisation to be found all around the island.

Moving on to #8 - Internet. If you're thinking of coming here as a Digital Nomad, the internet speeds in major areas are quite fast. I had no trouble conducting video conferences and uploading and downloading large files. The only issue is that the electricity can be quite unreliable. Some homes have battery backups, but in our apartment in Las Terrenas the electricity often went out several times a day. It was usually only for a few seconds, but its enough to cause your modem to turn off and then have to reboot.

#9 - Getting here. There are major airports in Punta Cana and Santo Domingo. We flew into the smaller Semana airport which is only about 20 minutes from Las Terrenas. Though only a few carriers land there and some people seem to think it isn't possible to land there at all, which is incorrect. Though we had to fly Air Transat out of Toronto to be able to use that airport. We are also only staying here for 30 days as that's the limit for the standard tourist visa. Though we understand that there are easy ways to extend that time.

And speaking of transportation, onto #10. Transportation is a bit of a pain around Las Terrenas. Uber doesn't operate here and each taxi is privately owned so you really need to have an individual driver you contact whenever you want to go somewhere, and they aren't cheap. This wasn't an issue for us in Santo Domingo though, where there are plenty of Ubers. UPDATE: [Moto taxis are the cheapest and most readily available way to get around, but be aware that DR has a very high rate of traffic accidents and deaths, and you don't get a helmet when you ride a moto. We avoided using these, and opted for cars, though sometimes they don't even have safety belts.]

But if you just want to stay in, then point #11 is useful. Food delivery here is very easy. In Las Terrenas there is both PedidosYa, which is a popular app in many latin american countries, as well as the local app called Komida. We were able to get reliable and delicious food delivery pretty much anytime we wanted. Except during Semana Santa, when the streets get so overrun with traffic in Las Terrenas that the delivery drivers can't get through so you can't order on the apps. But otherwise, it was very easy. And grocery delivery is also available.

If you're walking around town, the Colmados or local corner stores are also everywhere. Here you can pick up basic foods and snacks. And they also serve as informal bars where people can stand around outside to socialize and drink.

And our last item is #12. The fruits and veggies here are excellent. In Las Terrenas, the grocery stores have wide selections of produce, and you can easily buy local fruits like bananas, mangos, avocados and pineapples from the ladies walking down the sidewalks carrying baskets on their heads.

Just a quick note. In most latin american countries, passionfruit is called maracuya. But in the Domincan Republic the term is chinola.

And those are our 12 things to know about visiting Las Terrenas and the Dominican Republic as a slow traveler and digital nomad.