About 20 to 30 minutes from Dominica´s capital Roseau, this 26-square-mile UNESCO World Heritage Site is the island's marquee attraction: a volcanic rainforest of five peaks, fumaroles, and hot springs holding three signature sights. The Emerald Pool is a short, easy rainforest walk to a swimmable pool fed by a waterfall tumbling through a mossy grotto — an accessible, family-friendly highlight. Trafalgar Falls is actually twin falls (locally the "Mother" and "Father"), viewable from a platform a short walk from the parking area, with a pool at the base of the lower falls for those willing to scramble down for a dip. And the famous Boiling Lake (pictured here) is a flooded fumarole roughly 200 feet across where water bubbles near-boiling along the edges, shrouded in rising vapor. It´s only reachable, though, via an four-to-six-hour round-trip hike through the aptly named Valley of Desolation — a barren, sulfur-streaked landscape of bubbling mud pots and steam vents, with the trail climbing and dropingover volcanic ridges, adding up to roughly 3,000 feet of total elevation gain across the round trip, much of it on steep, uneven, sometimes slick ground, with sulfur fumes and no shade in the valley itself; a guide is strongly recommended. A couple of other features that are much easier to reach by road for a stroll or a swim are Titou Gorge and Freshwater Lake.
Read more in my post Why Dominica Is the Caribbean´s Quintessential "Nature Isle."
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