The Nature Island — What We Loved (and Struggled With) in Dominica

We knew Dominica had a reputation as "the nature island," and honestly, it undersells the place. Our first taste of it was the Indian River, where our guide Alexis rowed us slow through a tunnel of trees, thick and tangled, dripping with roots that arch straight out of the water — bloodwood trees among them, named for the sap that runs red when you cut into the bark, adding to the whole eerie, otherworldly feel. It's the same stretch used for Tia Dalma's hut scene in Pirates of the Caribbean, and once you're in there, you understand exactly why they picked it — the hut is still sitting right there, looking exactly like it did on screen. We've watched that whole series more times than we can count, so seeing it in person felt a little surreal. Alexis shared the river's history as we went, including the time he met Johnny Depp when the crew filmed here — hearing it from someone who was actually there made it land differently than reading it off a plaque. Along the way we spotted birds, fish swimming below us, iguanas sunning on branches, and tropical flowers everywhere, a whole ecosystem tucked into one quiet stretch of water. At the end of the river there's a bar, where we did a rum tasting; turns out you can soak almost anything in rum here, and they do. Back at the boat, Sophia came home with a palm tree bird Alexis made her — the kind of small thing that makes a day.

The next day, friends of ours pulled into the anchorage — the crew of SV Horizon Shine — and we teamed up for a shared tour: three stops, one day: Titou Gorge, Trafalgar Falls, and Sulphur Springs. Sophia and their son Bodhi hit it off immediately, which made the whole day even better.

Titou Gorge came first — narrow black volcanic walls, cold clear water, and the same gorge where they filmed the whirlpool scene in Pirates of the Caribbean. Swimming into that channel with the rock closing in overhead is something photos don't quite capture. From there we hiked to Trafalgar Falls, twin waterfalls dropping into the same pool, one fed by a hot sulphur spring and the other pure freshwater off the mountain — you can actually feel the temperature difference with your own hands. We wrapped up at Sulphur Springs, quieter and less crowded, a good place to catch our breath before heading back to the boats. Somewhere in between we spotted a wild agouti, no zoo required, and Sophia found a second one herself at the hot springs. The black volcanic beaches were stunning, but the steaming ground at Sulphur Springs was a real reminder of how many active volcanoes sit under this island — beautiful, but not something we forgot about easily.

Our guide kept us entertained with island trivia the whole way. Dominica has 365 rivers, one for every day of the year. Crab soup, made all in one pot, is about as close as it gets to a national dish. And there used to be a frog here called the "Mountain Chicken," once hunted for its legs — now extinct after a disease wiped out the population.

Not everything about Dominica was easy, though, and we'd be doing you a disservice not to mention it. Alexis himself was great — he'd actually messaged us while we were still in Guadeloupe, offering to help once we arrived, and we appreciated that. But the rest of it is genuinely hard to get used to. The boat boys aren't a one-time welcome — they show up daily, paddling out on kayaks to sell fruit or offer to take your trash for a fee. It's hard to say no when you can tell someone's fallen on hard times, so we've ended up with more fruit than we know what to do with. We get that this is how people here make a living, and we don't begrudge anyone trying to get by. But there's a difference between hospitality and pressure. By day three or four, it starts feeling like pressure — an annoyance, in a way. We can see how this alone could keep some cruisers from coming back — when almost every interaction circles back to money, it's hard to just relax into the place.

Even with that, the island itself is genuinely beautiful — not as polished as some of the other places we've visited, but stunning in its own right.

Would this stop you from visiting?Or is it just part of island travel? Let us know below 👇