After Maria’s Devastation, Can Dominica Be a Destination Again …

After the boat trip, I had a long lunch next to the docks, at the bare-bones Indian River Bar Grill. As I drank a Kubuli (or three), and ate chicken and rice (with spicy-creamy house-made pepper sauce!), I observed the scene. One man asked the young bartender so many questions about the soup of the day — turkey, with optional pig snout — that she teased back, “Why you so troublesome?” An American who had fled to Bolivia during the Vietnam War attempted to download the movie “The Last Castle” on his laptop. The chef responsible for the pepper sauce, Kim Mandy, told me she planned to bottle and sell it to cruise-ship visitors. People came, people went, and for a couple of hours, Dominica seemed to relax. This new normal felt … normal.

“Is there anywhere better than this?” asked a man named Rickson, sitting to my right.

There was, of course, no need to answer.

If You Go

Dominica is still in recovery mode, and with no single, definitive source for information, figuring out what’s functioning — and what is not — remains a challenge. Plan on arriving with plenty of time to explore, and an abundance of patience.

Getting to the island, however, is increasingly easy. Although there are no direct flights from the continental United States, six regional airlines provide service from other Caribbean islands, including Barbados, Saint Martin, and San Juan, P.R.

While many of Dominica’s hotels remain out of commission, the Fort Young Hotel is open during reconstruction, and offers a five-night voluntourism package ($837 per person) that includes trail-clearing. Secret Bay and Rosalie Bay Resort hope to be operational by fall 2018, with the Cabrits Resort Kempinski and Marriott’s Anichi Resort Spa to follow in 2019.

Many popular tourism destinations, such as Boiling Lake, the Emerald Pool and the trails one takes to reach them, are open and accessible. The Division of Forestry, meanwhile, is hard at work restoring the Waitukubuli National Trail. A spokeswoman for the division, Marcy Gachette, said by email that “work is active” on Segments 6, 7, 11, and 13, with Segments 1 and 3 near completion. With 115 miles of trail to restore at roughly $2,000 per mile, she said, it’s going to be a financial and logistical challenge.

Although road conditions vary, getting around the island is straightforward. If you’re comfortable driving on the left, up steep, rough hills, rental cars are available at the airport and in cities. (Best to be familiar with standard transmissions and four-wheel-drive.) Private taxis are on call for trips both short and long. And major routes in and between towns are plied by minivan taxis, which can be hailed from the road and cost very little.

Matt Gross, a former Frugal Traveler columnist for The New York Times, writes about travel, food, parenting, running and many other things.