ENG In a small island country with eight international airports, it was a road that made the biggest difference to the journey. The Coral Highway, linking Punta Cana and La Romana to Santo Domingo, started bombarding the capital with visitors from the main tourist hubs in 2012. Inter-regional tourism in the Dominican Republic is growing, thriving and providing a far more well-roun-ded travel experience than just white, sandy beaches and hedo-nistic ‘all-inclusives’. Most of the island lies yet to be discovered. On the southern Caribbean coast, hun-dreds of kilometres of beaches with turquoi-se-blue waters welco-me Dominicans, plus some foreign visitors, determined to travel beyond what the eye can see. And in the north, in Jarabacoa and Samaná, high-end eco-tourism is alre-ady well underway, in addition to the sma-ll resorts managed by local communi-ties. “I’m convinced that eco-tourism is going to boom over the next few years,” says Jonathan Rijo, assistant mana-ger of the Hamaca Boca Chica hotel. la ciudad colonial está en pleno auge y mezcla tradición y lujo. // ENG The colonial town is booming, mixing tradition and luxury. El corazón de la ciudad colonial: Alcázar de Colón. ENG // The heart of the colonial city: Alcázar de Colón.