9 Things You Need To Know About Puerto Rico

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Are you plan­ning a trip to Puer­to Rico for this win­ter? Have you seen all the ads, checked out all the tourist sites, blogs and YouTube videos and still feel lost? Do you feel like you’re being sold to? Well, guess what? You are!

Unlike the Unit­ed States and Europe, Puer­to Rico’s peak tourism sea­son is in win­ter, not sum­mer. That’s because most con­ti­nen­tals have plen­ty of enter­tain­ment options dur­ing the sum­mer months. They don’t have a com­pelling rea­son to look beyond their borders.

In the win­ter it’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Unless you’re into win­ter sports, the white stuff is most­ly a nui­sance for you. It’s hard to dri­ve in, many places close and con­di­tions can be down­right dan­ger­ous. Besides, let’s face it. Feel­ing wet, cold and mis­er­able isn’t fun at all.

You’ve heard sto­ries about Puer­to Rico. Some of them were good and oth­ers not so much. What you’d like is for some­one to tell you the facts, with­out the mar­ket­ing hype or the frost­ing (par­don the pun).

That’s what this post will be all about. I’ll answer your most press­ing ques­tions about Puer­to Rico. I’ll do it hon­est­ly, in some cas­es blunt­ly and before you spend a sin­gle dime. Why? Because, as a fel­low trav­eller, I’ve had my share of dis­ap­point­ments. So let’s just say that I’m pay­ing it forward.

SO WHO AM I ANYWAY?

Orlan­do Mergal

My name is Orlan­do Mer­gal, but you can call me Orlan­do. I was born in New York City. My par­ents moved back to the Island when I was nine. That was back in 1963, so you do the math.

Back in 2013 I start­ed this blog. Before that I served the Island’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor for 25 years. My ser­vices includ­ed writ­ing, trans­la­tions, pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy and all around cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions. My for­mal train­ing was in sci­ence and busi­ness communications.

So what makes me an expert on trav­el? Well, I’m not. I’d rather call myself a life­long stu­dent. But, in the case of Puer­to Rico, the Island is my home. And believe me, I’ve explored it inside out for over 50 years. But that explains only the “what”, not the “how”.

My love for land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy has tak­en my wife and I to every cor­ner of Puer­to Rico.

We’ve also vis­it­ed over 20 U.S. Nation­al Parks, 50+ state parks and some parts of Europe. We trav­el with­out a sched­ule or pre­de­ter­mined route. Hence, we’ve seen places that most tourists will nev­er see.

My sis­ter site Puer­to Rico Pho­tog­ra­phy is where I sell my images. Here I tell you about my adven­tures through writ­ing, pho­tos and video. Oh, and I include the GPS coor­di­nates for every loca­tion so you can go there too.

SO WHAT’S THIS POST GOING TO BE ABOUT?

In the begin­ning I men­tioned the ads. Those “mag­i­cal” pieces of audio­vi­su­al wiz­ardry that got you to call your trav­el agent. Oh wait. Those are almost extinct (the agents, that is). So I guess you booked online. Right? Well, be that as it may, you got wrapped in a mar­ket­ing spell.

Wouldn’t you like to know the truth about Puer­to Rico? After all, pret­ty soon you’ll be here. It’s a lit­tle over 1,000 miles south­east of Mia­mi. Yet, in many aspects it’s like a whole ‘nother world. Don’t you think you should be “in the know before yo go”?.

Let me tell you what we’ll cover:

• Cur­ren­cy
• Nation­al­i­ty
• Lan­guage
• Cost of Living
• Food
• Get­ting around
  • Bus­es
  • Trains
  • Fer­ries
  • Air Trav­el
  • Taxis
  • Rideshare
  • Car Rentals
• Dri­ving and traffic
• Road Con­di­tions
• Safe­ty

You’ll notice that I did­n’t men­tion attrac­tions. Those are cov­ered through­out the rest of this blog. There are hun­dreds of posts and pages about every cor­ner of Puer­to Rico under the “San Juan Metro” and “La Isla” menus. You’ll also find dozens of videos under the “Blog” and “Videos” menus. In every case I include GPS coor­di­nates for every attrac­tion. That’s why we call the site Puer­to Rico By GPS.

So let’s get to it, because we have a lot to cover.

Currency

Puer­to Rico’s econ­o­my is based on the U.S. dol­lar. That means that there is no cur­ren­cy exchange, unless you’re com­ing from out­side the Unit­ed States.

Unlike oth­er juris­dic­tions, like Europe and Cana­da, not all banks on the Island offer cur­ren­cy exchange. That’s because most tourists on the Island come from the main­land. Ban­co Pop­u­lar (the largest bank on the Island) does offer cur­ren­cy exchange. They also have over 130 branch­es pep­pered through­out the Island.

Puer­to Rico also has a robust net­work of ATMs. These include ter­mi­nals from Ban­co Pop­u­lar, oth­er bank­ing insti­tu­tions and cred­it unions. That means that most cred­it and deb­it cards are also honored.

Reg­u­lar bank­ing hours are from 8:00am to 4:00pm, Mon­day thru Fri­day. Some banks go as late as 5:00pm. Most banks close on Sat­ur­days and all close on Sundays.

Many banks have recent­ly been restrict­ing the use of cards issued on the Island when trav­el­ing abroad. In order for these cards to work you have to call your bank ahead of time and inform them where you’re plan­ning to be. This is “sup­pos­ed­ly” a secu­ri­ty mea­sure. Whether we like it or not, that’s the way the game is played.

So my sug­ges­tion is that you ver­i­fy if that’s the case with your bank as well. Oth­er­wise, you could find your­self on the Island with cards that won’t work.

Final­ly, I always car­ry some old fash­ioned cash in my pock­et. Those “ana­log green­backs” work every time.

Nationality

Puer­to Ricans are U.S. cit­i­zens and Puer­to Rico is U.S. soil. We became a U.S. Ter­ri­to­ry in 1898, fol­low­ing the Span­ish-Amer­i­can War. In 1917 Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son signed the Jones-Shafroth Act. This grant­ed Puer­to Ricans U.S. Statu­to­ry Citizenship.

What does that mean? The U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion doesn’t cov­er cit­i­zens born in the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry of Puer­to Rico. That’s why in 1917 the U.S. Con­gress passed a law grant­i­ng U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship to peo­ple born on the Island. Short­ly after 20,000 Puer­to Ricans were draft­ed to serve dur­ing World War 1. Coin­ci­dence? What do you think?.

Lat­er on the Unit­ed States Supreme Court ruled that Puer­to Ricans born after Jan­u­ary 13, 1941 were U.S. cit­i­zens at birth.

U.S. cit­i­zens born in any of the 50 states enjoy the same rights and priv­i­leges in Puer­to Rico as in any U.S. state. How­ev­er, if they were to move to Puer­to Rico they would lose the right to vote in U.S. elections.

That means that your U.S. driver’s license is valid in Puer­to Rico. For how long exact­ly? That’s a ques­tion that you will need to ask at the Island’s Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion or at your car rental com­pa­ny. I think it’s close to a year, but I’m not sure.

As for I.D., U.S. cit­i­zens are not required to car­ry a Nation­al Iden­ti­ty Card. Usu­al­ly, your dri­vers per­mit or license will do the trick. How­ev­er, I have learned through the school of hard knocks that a pass­port is always bet­ter. Like a friend of mine likes to say: “with my pass­port in hand I am me regard­less of where I am”. I nev­er leave home with­out it.

Language

Puer­to Ricans speak Span­ish. There are no two ways about it. How­ev­er, that doesn’t mean that they don’t speak Eng­lish as well. Many of them, like my chil­dren and I, can’t be told apart from reg­u­lar Amer­i­cans. My wife, on the oth­er hand, has a heavy Lati­no accent.

The fact is that most Puer­to Ricans speak and under­stand Eng­lish. Albeit, at dif­fer­ent degrees.

Traf­fic signs on the Island are either of the inter­na­tion­al vari­ety or in Span­ish. Even stop signs say “Pare” instead of “Stop”. This is some­thing that I always found fun­ny in Spain. Over there all the signs are in Span­ish —of course— but stop signs say “Stop”. Go figure.

Most sig­nage is in Span­ish. Busi­ness­es, on the oth­er hand, are named in Eng­lish. I guess it makes the own­ers feel more “dis­tin­guished”. You’ll nev­er find a place called “Licor­ería Pepe”, but you might find “Pepe’s Liquor Store”. Some­how Puer­to Ricans got it in their heads that if they named their busi­ness­es in Eng­lish it would make them sound more “impor­tant”. Hmmm..

Most busi­ness trans­ac­tions are done in Eng­lish. How­ev­er, gov­ern­ment trans­ac­tions are done in Span­ish. School takes place in Span­ish, except for Eng­lish class, of course.

Tourist attrac­tions are most­ly bilin­gual. How­ev­er, most oper­a­tors speak native Span­ish and trans­ac­tion­al English.

In the end, Puer­to Rico is a Latin Amer­i­can cul­ture shroud­ed in Amer­i­can influ­ence. Those of us that live on the Island hard­ly notice it, but just ask a real “lati­noamer­i­cano” and they’ll tell you how “amer­i­can­ized” the Island real­ly is.

Dri­ving is spe­cial­ly inter­est­ing. Don’t miss our video “Dri­ving In Puer­to Rico” before rent­ing a car on the Island. You’ll have a few laughs.

Cost Of Living

Puer­to Rico used to be eco­nom­i­cal, but not any­more. The fact that it’s an Island, and that every­thing needs to be shipped or flown in, doesn’t help either.

You can call Puer­to Rico what­ev­er you want: a ter­ri­to­ry, a pos­ses­sion… it doesn’t mat­ter. In the end it’s a colony of the Unit­ed States. Why? Because the name doesn’t alter the essence.

Every aspect of life on the Island is con­trolled by out­side forces. Most large U.S. retail­ers have a pres­ence on the Island. This makes life for small busi­ness­es almost impos­si­ble. Let alone the “dump­ing” fac­tor that crip­ples small oper­a­tions and pass­es down recy­cling and dis­pos­al costs.

Recent laws, designed to attract cap­i­tal from the states, have effect­ed the real estate mar­ket. This has led to mas­sive spec­u­la­tion, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion and a short term rental explo­sion. Every­thing is more expen­sive than it was 10 years ago. This includes food, gas, enter­tain­ment, accom­mo­da­tions and car rentals.

In fact, many major cities on the main­land are more eco­nom­i­cal than San Juan. And please notice that I did say “San Juan”. As you move away from the San Juan Metro­plex prices tend to go down significantly.

Food

I pro­duced a video some time ago titled “Is Puer­to Rican Food Any Good?” which I invite you to watch. Believe me, you’ll learn a lot in a lit­tle over 3 minutes.

Some Puer­to Ricans will tell you that Puer­to Rico is a blend of three cul­tures: Span­ish, African and Taíno. But that’s severe­ly short­sight­ed.

When the Spaniards got here in 1493 they brought with them 8 cen­turies of moor­ish influ­ence. They also brought shiploads of jews flee­ing from the inquisition.

Lat­er on Africans were intro­duced as slaves, Cor­si­cans arrived on the south coast and even Chi­nese that helped build the Island’s roads.

All this with­out men­tion­ing the 125+ years of Unit­ed States influence.

This blend has cre­at­ed a unique cui­sine that rivals that of the major cap­i­tals of the world.

And you don’t need to go too far. All you have to do is walk the streets of Old San Juan and you’ll find every­thing from Cuban to Turk­ish to Span­ish to Chi­nese to Ital­ian. Let alone every imag­in­able fast food joint from the Unit­ed States.

And, as you leave San Juan, and ven­ture to the small­er towns of “la Isla”, that’s when the real fun begins. You’ll find all sorts of Puer­to Rican del­i­ca­cies, bev­er­ages and deserts. Plus the peo­ple are nicer. Maybe because they’re exposed to less stress? I don’t know.

Getting Around

If there’s one thing Puer­to Ricans can’t brag about it’s the Island’s trans­porta­tion sys­tems. All of them could be bet­ter. That’s not to say that any one of them in par­tic­u­lar is dis­grace­ful but when you com­pare them with oth­er cities the dif­fer­ence is abis­mal in some cases.

Buses

If you want to go any­where beyond the San Juan Metro­plex for­get about pub­lic bus­es. There aren’t any. That said, the San Juan Metro­plex is served by AMA “Autori­dad Met­ro­pol­i­tana de Auto­bus­es” (Met­ro­pol­i­tan Bus Author­i­ty), a gov­ern­ment-run agency that has nev­er risen above mediocre.

To be fair, the bus­es are rel­a­tive­ly clean and seem to be well kept. But wait­ing for one takes patience. Espe­cial­ly at night and on week­ends. Plus they are high­ly unpre­dictable. If you need to be at a cer­tain place at a cer­tain hour the bus should not be your choice.

Trains

There is only one train in Puer­to Rico. It’s called “El Tren Urbano” (the urban train) and it goes between the Hato Rey Com­mer­cial Dis­trict and Bayamón. Some peo­ple call it the “train to nowhere” because it serves no real pur­pose oth­er than con­nect­ing the Island’s two largest judi­cial centers.

Just so you know, it doesn’t go by any of the tourist areas, the major enter­tain­ment cen­ters (with the excep­tion of the José Miguel Agrelot Col­i­se­um) or the major shop­ping cen­ters. Oh, and did I men­tion that it cost 2.5 bil­lion dol­lars for 10 milles of track?

In the begin­ning it used to have 4 or 5 cars. Late­ly I’ve seen it with as lit­tle as two. In all cas­es most­ly empty.

The sad part is that it works well, fol­lows a sched­ule and is most­ly clean. But, since it doesn’t go any­where use­ful, peo­ple hard­ly use it.

Ferries

There are two main fer­ries in Puer­to Rico. The rest are sec­ondary oper­a­tions that are not worth mentioning.

The old­est and best known fer­ry on the Island is “La Lan­cha de Cataño” (the Cataño Fer­ry). It’s lit­er­al­ly a one-boat-oper­a­tion that goes between Old San Juan and the town of Cataño across San Juan Bay.

I pro­duced a video about Cataño ear­li­er this year in which I cov­ered this fer­ry. As I recall, it worked well, was kept clean, stuck to a sched­ule and arrived on time. How­ev­er, it had one glar­ing prob­lem. The com­pa­ny that holds the gov­ern­ment con­tract only has one boat.

Now what could go wrong there?

The same com­pa­ny has the con­tract for the Vieques and Cule­bra fer­ry. Vieques and Cule­bra are two island munic­i­pal­i­ties off the east coast of the larg­er island. For decades the com­plaints have been the same: boats that break down, don’t arrive or arrive late.

And, of course, when you live on an Island where you depend on the fer­ry —to go to your doctor’s appoint­ment or to attend any oth­er crit­i­cal mat­ter— these defi­cien­cies become real­ly crit­i­cal real­ly quick.

Not a year goes by with­out hear­ing com­plaints by the peo­ple of Vieques and Culebra.

This also affects tourism. Many peo­ple that come to Puer­to Rico ask about Fla­men­co Beach on the north side of Cule­bra. After all, it fre­quent­ly ranks as the num­ber one beach in the world! But, when they learn that a 20-minute round trip plane tick­et aver­ages $240 per per­son their inter­est dwindles.

Air Travel

Puer­to Rico is a small island. It only has a land area of 3,435 square miles. And yet it has 8 air­ports. There was a time when you could catch a flight to almost any­where in the world. Even the Con­cord used to fly to Puer­to Rico. But things have changed.

Eco­nom­ic real­i­ties have forced air­lines to reduce the num­ber of des­ti­na­tions as well as the num­ber of flights. Ter­ror­ism has also forced changes like stricter FAA and TSA rules, as well as uncom­fort­able screen­ing pro­ce­ses. But that’s the world that we live in and things aren’t much dif­fer­ent at any oth­er air­port on the mainland.

All in all, Puer­to Rico’s air­ports work well. Albeit they could improve in the way of mov­ing vehic­u­lar traf­fic and peo­ple. Iron­i­cal­ly, every time I arrive on the Island there’s the same mess of peo­ple pick­ing up pas­sen­gers. Then, as you leave the air­port, you can see the line of cars parked on the shoul­der of the road wait­ing for their loved ones to land.

There has to be a bet­ter way!

As for the mechan­ics of catch­ing a flight, reg­is­ter­ing your lug­gage, going through the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture screen­ing, the TSA and board­ing its all the same as at any oth­er air­port. Here’s a list of Puer­to Ricos most impor­tant airports:

• • • Luis Muñoz Marín Inter­na­tion­al Air­port – IATA Code – SJU
    • Rafael Hernán­dez Inter­na­tion­al Air­port – IATA Code – BQN
    • Mer­cedi­ta Inter­na­tion­al Air­port – IATA Code – AIM
    • Anto­nio Rivera Rodríguez Air­port – IATA Code – VQS
    • José Aponte de la Torre Air­port – IATA Code – NRR
    • Ben­jamín Rivera Nor­ie­ga Air­port – IATA Code – CPX
    • Fer­nan­do Luis Ribas Dominic­ci Air­port – IATA Code – SIG
    • Euge­nio María de Hos­tos Air­port – IATA Code – MAZ

Taxies

Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because you’ll guess my age, but when I start­ed dri­ving back in the ear­ly sev­en­ties a gal­lon of gaso­line used to cost 25¢. That’s a gal­lon, not a liter. Nowa­days it’s close to a dol­lar a liter.

Puer­to Rico uses the impe­r­i­al sys­tem. That’s feet, pounds and gal­lons. But, when it comes to gaso­line, we mea­sure it in liters. Why do you think that is?

It’s not because it more con­ve­nient, because that’s a mat­ter of opin­ion. Nei­ther is it eas­i­er to under­stand. In fact it’s hard­er, because Puer­to Ricans (like Amer­i­cans) think in gal­lons. Then why do you think it is?

It’s a mar­ket­ing ploy. Back dur­ing the 70’s, when oil prices went through the roof, local gaso­line ven­dors devised a way to make steep­er prices a lit­tle more palat­able for Puer­to Ricans. Being that they couldn’t con­trol the price, they changed the mea­sur­ing unit. Instead of sell­ing gas by the gal­lon they start­ed sell­ing it by the liter.

At first peo­ple resent­ed it, because a gal­lon of gas equals 3.8 liters. But after a while they for­got the actu­al scheme and the only thing that stuck in their heads were the cheap­er prices. After all a 26¢ liter of gas sound­ed a lot bet­ter than a $1 gallon.

To this day gaso­line is till sold by the liter on the Island.

Well, tax­ies are the same con­cept. As they start­ed get­ting more and more expen­sive the rates changed from miles to kilo­me­ters. Why? Because there are 1.6 kilo­me­ters in a mile. Hence, a small­er unit result­ed in a low­er price. But, as in the case of gas, it was a mirage because $2 per kilo­me­ter were actu­al­ly $3.20 per mile.

I have to admit that I nev­er ride taxis. First, because I live on the Island and I own a car. And sec­ond, because I’d rather rent a car than ride a taxi. But each per­son is dif­fer­ent and we all have our own preferences.

Final­ly, I find the entire exer­cise con­fus­ing. There are sur­charges per piece of lug­gage, per pas­sen­ger, per area… in the end you end up clos­ing your eyes, hop­ing for the best and pay­ing what­ev­er you’re charged. Taxis reg­u­lat­ed by Puer­to Rico Tourism Com­pa­ny have some fixed prices for the San Juan Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area.

That said, Taxis on the Island have to meet strict reg­u­la­tions of qual­i­ty, clean­li­ness, cour­tesy and safe­ty. So, all in all, they are one more alter­na­tive for a cer­tain sector.

Rideshare

Rideshar­ing ser­vices are wide­ly avail­able through­out Puer­to Rico. Espe­cial­ly in larg­er cities like San Juan, Ponce and Mayagüez. At the moment only Uber is available.

Like taxis, rideshare can become real expen­sive real fast, espe­cial­ly if you go out­side city lim­its. Your best option, once again, is to rent a car.

In the past rideshare ser­vices have got­ten a bad rap because of secu­ri­ty con­cerns. As in any tourist des­ti­na­tion it is advis­able to take cer­tain precautions.

• • • Wait inside until your ride arrives.
    • Make sure you’re get­ting in the right car, with the right driver.
    • Match the license plate, car make and mod­el and dri­ver pho­to with what appears on your app.
    • Ask the dri­ver to con­firm your name as it appears on his app.
    • Sit in the back and make sure that the door opens from the inside.
    • Wear your seatbelt.
    • Share your trip details with loved ones.
    • Don’t vol­un­teer information.
    • Be respect­ful.
    • Give feed­back about your experience.

As in the case of taxis, I’ve only used rideshare ser­vices sev­er­al times in my life. Quite frankly, I’m a rental car kind of guy. But I must admit that the few that I have tak­en have been pos­i­tive experiences.

Car Rentals

Most of the nation­al car rental com­pa­nies are avail­able in Puer­to Rico. Most of them are locat­ed either next to the air­port entrance or on a ser­vice road next to the south­ern run­way. Most of them also have shut­tle ser­vice to get you from and to the airport.

There are also small­er local oper­a­tors that offer com­pet­i­tive pric­ing. You can find those in the Isla Verde area and on Bal­do­ri­o­ty Avenue. That’s road 26 that goes by the airport.

Although I have a pri­vate vehi­cle, there have been times when it has made bet­ter sense to renta a car than to use my own. I’ve also rent­ed small trucks for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es. And to be hon­est I can’t recall a sin­gle instance when I had a bad experience.

They all offer pret­ty much the same makes and mod­els, the same rates and the same ammeni­ties. It’s real­ly a mat­ter of price and con­ve­nience. So your best bet is to shop around.

Driving and Traffic

Dri­ving in Puer­to Rico can be quite an expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly if you come from a small­er, laid back state where peo­ple actu­al­ly obey traf­fic laws. On the oth­er hand, if you come from a major metrop­o­lis like New York, Orlan­do or Dal­las you might feel right at home.

Rush hours can be crazy, espe­cial­ly in the San Juan Metro­plex. Traf­fic jams can extend for miles with­out and major cause or acci­dent. Peo­ple will dri­ve on the shoul­der, change lanes with­out a turn sig­nal and barge in at the last minute. They’ll also honk their horn the minute the light turns green.

In fact, the Roy­al Time Muse­um in Green­wich defines a sec­ond as the time it takes a Puer­to Rican to honk his horn after a traf­fic light turns green. Just kidding.

Then there’s road rage. Like in many oth­er places around the world, road rage has become a real thing in Puer­to Rico. Regard­less of the cir­cum­stances, nev­er ever give any­one “the fin­ger”. It can cost you your life. Seriously.

Then there’s the sig­nage. Sev­er­al years ago I pro­duced a video titled “Dri­ving in Puer­to Rico” that describes how con­fus­ing it can be to dri­ve on the Island. I invite you to watch it. It’s a lot of fun.

Road Conditions

Dri­ving on the Island can be espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly under rainy con­di­tions. Many roads have pot­holes the width of a bath­tub that can mess up your car when filled with water.

Of course, your rental car should car­ry insur­ance that will take care of the finan­cial aspects of the repair, but the fact of the mat­ter is that a large pot­hole can also lead to acci­dents and injuries.

Puer­to Rico’s rainy sea­son is usu­al­ly from April to Novem­ber, with August being the wettest month. Then again, Puer­to Rico is a trop­i­cal island so rain can come at any time.

Flood­ing is also a com­mon occur­rence on the Island. When com­bined with pot­holes, miss­ing drain cov­ers and road debris it can lead to acci­dents and even death.

Safety

I would love to tell you that Puer­to Rico is a quaint and peace­ful place where you’ll be safe at all times. But it’s not. The Island does have its share of crime, main­ly relat­ed to the drug trade.

Crim­i­nals also know that you’ll be in town for a short time and that you’ll soon­er pass on a legal mat­ter than  pur­sue it in court.

That said, there are mea­sures you can take to be as safe as possible.

• Safe­ty in num­bers – Van­dals are more prone to prey on lone indi­vid­u­als than on larg­er groups. So try to stick to a group, be it fel­low trav­ellers or friends.
• Larg­er venues – Larg­er venues are gen­er­al­ly safer. After all, there’s a rea­son why they’re larg­er. They have bet­ter illu­mi­na­tion, safer facil­i­ties, secu­ri­ty per­son­nel, cam­eras and safe­ty mea­sures in place. Leave the small obscure places for the locals who know their way around better.
• The front desk clerk is your friend – Every­where I go the first per­son that I try to befriend is the front desk clerk. He/she is gen­er­al­ly a local who can tell you where to go and which places to avoid. They gen­er­al­ly know all the cool places to eat, the events tak­ing place and the last minute deals.
• Check the weath­er — This should be obvi­ous but you’d be sur­prised of how many peo­ple actu­al­ly drown in the Puer­to Rico every year. After all, it’s an island. So it’s sur­round­ed by water. But all that water can also bring problems.

There’s an app on the right hand col­umn of the Puer­to Rico By GPS web­site that gives you all the lat­est weath­er infor­ma­tion. Right below it there’s a ban­ner that reads: “Don’t Drown”. Click on it and you’ll end up at the Nation­al Weath­er Site for Puer­to Rico, where you’ll find the lat­est infor­ma­tion and weath­er advisories.

Pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to the haz­ardous weath­er and rip cur­rent advi­sories. They can save your life! If they say to stay out of the water, stay out please! At least you’ll get to go home and tell your friends and fam­i­ly about the mon­strous waves.

Puer­to Rico is a beau­ti­ful place where you can have the time of your life and return safe­ly. But it’s not per­fect. Like any oth­er place it has its pos­i­tives and its neg­a­tives. It can be par­adise or it can be hell.

Pay atten­tion to posts like this one. There’s a rea­son why I took the time to write this 4,000+ word arti­cle just for you. I want you to keep your eyes wide open. I want you to enjoy. I want you to be safe and –above all– I want you to return again and again.

All the best from sun­ny Puer­to Rico,

©2023,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590