Reason 5 to leave Santo Domingo: Entertainment problems

As I described it already before, Dominicans tend to be rather slow and kind of sluggish characters. Not many interesting things seem to happen in Santo Domingo’s daily life. A lot of people are loitering around the streets of Santo Domingo doing mostly not really something productive.

For a capital city, I must confess, that not much is going on in the streets of Santo Domingo. Compared to many other Latin American capital cities, Santo Domingo doesn’t offer a lot of thrilling street markets with craftsmanship or highly talented street artists.

If you like shopping, you better go to one of the enormous shopping malls in the city. Numerous gigantic malls are scattered around the city and unite many of the entertaining things you would expect to be in other neighborhoods.

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Remember when I wrote about the chaotic urban planning? From the architectural perspective, this far too close distance amongst the shopping malls is, unfortunately, a proof of it. Within just a few square miles, all shopping malls are concentrated and compete amongst each other. At the same time, the outlying areas don’t have any of these shopping opportunities.

You barely find out of these shopping malls a lot of other places like cinemas, video arcades or other types of digital entertainment. Don’t expect in Santo Domingo other entertainment factors like circuses, amusement parks, etc.

Not many cultural upscale activities visible in Santo Domingo

Museums in the city of Santo Domingo are interesting but only a few of them exist. If you take it seriously, you could probably visit all interesting AND relevant museums within one weekend. Including a tour guide. Apart from the museums in the Colonial Zone, that are barely interesting exhibitions or expositions in Santo Domingo.

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Theaters, operas, musicals, or other cultural activities are quite scarce in Santo Domingo. It’s quite disappointing if you remember, that you live in the oldest city on the American continent. But apart from the epochal and elegant spirit of the buildings and squares in the Colonial Zone, there is not much to see or do for culturally interested citizens.

Lack of sports in the Dominican Republic – And Santo Domingo

The national sport of the Dominican Republic is Baseball ⚾

A sport, that a regular foreigner can’t really follow and understand. In Europe, this sport is fairly unknown and even in North America, it has the reputation of being rather indolent, boring, and complicated. After Basketball, Football, Ice hockey, several fighting, and motorsports, Baseball is rather treated as what was left.

Some matches tend to last for many hours and can’t be completed in a full evening. I remember one match watching on the television that lasted for 5 hours before it was decided to play the following evening the rest of the match.

But other sports? Team sports? Ball sports? Motorsports? Nil report. Nothing really organized or professional enough to follow.

The Dominican Republic could be perceived as a paradise for golf players as I wrote in an earlier article. But that’s more of a snobby rich kid sport or for wealthy tourists. The typical Dominican citizen doesn’t show interest in Golf, because they simply can’t afford to buy the equipment to play it.

Even if Golf would be a serious topic in the Dominican population – I couldn’t personally decide which of both sports is more boring.

Nocturnal entertainment in Santo Domingo is quite limited

I can’t say, that there’s nothing going on in Santo Domingo. In fact, life happens in the Dominican Republic on the streets. One of the few exceptions is the recurring concerts at the ‘Monasterio de San Francisco’ in the Colonial Zone.

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Grupo Bonyé plays every Sunday traditional Dominican Merengue music. And the entrance is free for that open-air concert!

Remember when I wrote in some other articles about Colmados? The great thing about them are that they also offered the before described delivery services. Whether you need a drinks, food, over-the-counter drugs or other consumables – They deliver it to your house for a reasonable price. Some grew to a certain extend with outdoor or gastronomic services.

Many people are sitting in (mostly green Presidente) plastic chairs everywhere around and drink beer or rum to chatter around. Dancing, smoking and alcohol drinking people in Colmados are funny to watch for a couple of minutes. Also participating every now and then is fine. But as a feature-length entertainment, it’s simply not my preference for a whole evening.

What you also will discover at almost every corner will be a table with four people sitting around and playing the tabletop game Domino.

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Of course, there are some discotheques and bars scattered around Santo Domingo. The ones I discovered are nice but no real awe-factor. But this type of concentrated nightlife in a whole neighborhood isn’t almost existent in Santo Domingo. Compared to many other Latin American cities I discovered, Santo Domingo appears to me a little bit…how to explain…dull.

Only the Colonial Zone as mentioned before comes close to a magnet for younger people to create nightlife in a broader sense. Other than that, Santo Domingo doesn’t really offer a memorable nightlife for its ambitious (expat) citizens.

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I hope, that I could’ve helped you with your decision to live in Santo Domingo. By giving several pros and cons from the insider’s perspective, you should have a better imagination now about Santo Domingo.

Maybe you are more interested in another of my insider living guides that analyzes the Colonial Zone of Domingo on a more detailed level? Please click on the articles below to gather some additional information about the most vibrant neighborhood of Santo Domingo from an expat’s perspective. I focus on the most interesting 0.4 square miles of the oldest city of the Caribbean.

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