As a way to wrap up the summer, I decided to take a quick trip to Puerto Rico with some friends. I ended up staying up too late the night before and not packing; bad combination. My friends stormed into my room the morning of my flight to wake me up, so I grabbed my backpack and we were off. This was one of my first trips with the Amex Platinum card, so we had to stop at the lounge, it is awesome to have somewhere we can grab a drink and snack without spending a fortune (or anything at all!). Sometimes I plan great and well, this trip was not one of those. Not only did I bring no clothes, but I didn’t even manage to grab a swimsuit. This made the mall a perfect first spot where I was able to get a couple things to get me through the trip. In Puerto Rico the drinking age is 18, which made this an ideal location. We didn’t have much planned outside of the beach, so we are gonna jump right into the trip!
The Trip
Day 1
Upon landing we went straight to the hotel, dropped off our luggage and went to the T-Mobile district for lunch. We ate at Sazón Cocina Criolla, the staff was very friendly and even gave us plenty of tips and things to do. The food was also amazing, I am pretty sure I ended up eating Empanadas every day. I tried a little bit of everything and enjoyed it all.
After lunch we went shopping, the mall was super cool, had everything you could need. Once I got some clothes we headed over to the forts for sunset, we chilled in the park and really enjoyed the atmosphere and views. After sunset we walked downtown and went to a couple bars. Nothing crazy worth noting. We then headed back to the hotel and attempted to go out, but we didn’t get very far as we needed rest after a long travel day.
Day 2
Took an early start today as we wanted to make as much of our time as possible (This seems to be the norm on every trip). We headed straight to the beach where we were able to rent some jet skis and and buy some Empanadas and Pineapple smoothies. We stayed at the beach all the way until sunset and then we back to the hotel to change and get ready for dinner. Our hotels happy our consisted of free drinks, so you know the boys balling on a budget had to take advantage of this. We ended up walking over to The Metropol Restaurant for dinner. It was really delicious, got to try some local cuisine and it didn’t disappoint. After dinner we freshened up and headed to La Placita. This is a must do for nightlife if you visit PR. There is a string of different clubs with different music genres and atmospheres, there is definitely something for everyone. Being from Florida, our clubs all close at 2 AM. Most other places I have gone stay open way later and PR was no different. A couple of us stayed out until about 3 AM, which we then made our way back to the hotel as we wanted to try and get an early start to our next day.
Day 3
Got up semi-early after a long night. We were supposed to have a rental car and head over to El Yunque. However, I wasn’t in charge of the rental and none of us were 25. I was told it would cost almost $600 for the day and with it being an hour away, Uber was not an option. We decided to ditch the car idea and I booked an excursion for the following day using GetYourGuide (From San Juan: El Yunque Rainforest and Waterslide Tour). We will talk about it in the Day 4 portion, but it was amazing. So with El Yunque postponed we decided to head to Old San Juan and actually go inside the forts. Now if you’re coming in on a cruise for the day, this is a fantastic option. It is close to port and the forts were fun to explore. We grabbed some lunch (of course its empanadas), and then headed over to Pigeon Park. This is a must see if your in Old San Juan, it was a cool little thing to tack on to our downtown experience. You will enjoy just walking the streets with all the vibrant color buildings. We headed back towards our hotel as this was our last night in PR. We hit up the beach for sunset and really took in our last night. After sunset we headed to bed as we had to be up early for our excursion.
Day 4
Woke up bright and early to go to El Yunque. Met up with our tour driver and we set off on our journey which took about an hour. The roads we drove on to get there were insane, definitely a style of driving I could not do. These roads look like they could only fit one car and two vans would pass each other, but our guide was accustomed to it. This tour ended up being perfect. I would 100% book an excursion as the forest would be hard to navigate on your own with a lot of restrictive areas. Our guide Giam was great and the natural waterslide, jump spot, and watering hole were awesome. We went really early and missed a lot of crowds, but it was packed towards the end and it would be annoying getting stuck behind a large group. They already move you pretty quick (only complaint is I wish we got more time), and if you get stuck behind a large group I could see a lot of time being wasted. Also go with as small a group as possible to lessen the chance of slow people being in your group. The faster you move the more time you get. I also recommend bring water shoes you don’t care about as they require shoes and they will get dirty and wet. The rainforest was an awesome experience, its a must do if you visit for a couple days and like any kind of adventure. If you come on a cruise you could do it, but you wouldn’t get much time downtown or at the beach. Really depends on what you want. After we hiked back we went to a great spot for lunch (La Frutera Flores). This was right on the side of the road and was some of the best food of the entire trip. Not only was it super cheap, but the smoothies they had were freshly blended and tasted amazing. Almost worth the excursion just to stop here. We then went back to the hotel grabbed our bags and headed to the airport (we were able to enjoy the lounge as we waited for our flight).
Wrap Up
This trip was awesome for a quick getaway to end the summer. I felt like we got to do everything I would have wanted in the 3 nights we were there (getting there by 9 AM and leaving at 9 PM really helped), 4 nights is probably ideal. You can’t go wrong with food as we had no bad meals, and it is part of the U.S, so you can travel here without a passport! Thanks for reading!
Travelers
Ben Carroll – Luis Vega – Gage Anderson – Max Carroll – Nate Dunklin