Sosúa sits in the curve of the Bahía de Sosúa, laying out a pretty golden beach for tourists who come to the northern town to take advantage of the peaceful waters for swimming, snorkeling and nearby diving. It also offers visitors wonderful hotel accommodations and a bevy of restaurant choices, all of which are cheaper than nearby Puerto Plata and Cabarete.

Sosúa is a town with a sad history. In 1937, Trujillo ordered a massacre of over 20,000 Haitians. He realized that he needed to clean up his tarnished image, and he was eager for the incident to be overlooked. Since World War II was underway, Trujillo, under the guise of altruism, offered political asylum to Jewish refugees escaping Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Thus, in 1939, Sosúa was founded by nearly 600 European Jewish immigrants.

In true Trujillo form, there was yet another ulterior motive. He was also trying to “whiten” the race of the Dominican Republic, one of his constant obsessions. While some of the Jewish families integrated and stayed in the Dominican Republic, many of them left. About 20 families remain in Sosúa today, and the legacy of their relatives, in the myriad skills they brought with them, still lives on in the community. A strong dairy and cured meat industry was formed when the first refugees came during World War II. And the synagogue that was built still holds services.

The beauty of a place like Sosúa naturally generates a strong tourism industry. But, when the sex tourism industry took over, that’s when things really began to boom. Since then, the government has gone to various measures in an effort to squelch the activities, and for more than two decades the economy of the town has been trying to recover. Sosúa still suffers from a somewhat tarnished reputation. But if you can choose to look the other way for the rather obvious happenings and enjoy the plethora that Sosúa has to offer, this town is one of the best towns to use as a home base for exploring the rest of the northern coast, both for its location and for its lower prices.

Getting to Sosúa

Most people fly in to Puerto Plata (Aeropuerto Internacional Gregorio Luperón) and then take a cab, guagua, or hotel shuttle to their accommodations in Sosúa. Expect to pay around US$20 for a cab and US$1 for a guagua.

Caribe Tours (Carretera a Puerto Plata, tel. 809/571-3808) is in the Los Charamicos neighborhood. From Sosúa you can catch a bus to Santo Domingo (US$8.50) leaving every hour 5:15 a.m.–7 p.m. daily.

For around the same cost, Metro Tours (Av. Luperón, tel. 809/571-3480) has lines that run to and from Puerto Plata, Santiago, and Santo Domingo at 8:20 a.m., 10:20 a.m., 1:20 p.m., and 5:50 p.m.