Colorful buildings, palm trees, rain forests, aqua waters and tasty rum. Why yes, you are still in the U.S… technically. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, which makes it a great vacation destination for U.S. citizens. You don’t need a passport or visa and you can visit with direct flights from lots of U.S. airports. If this sounds like a great vacation destination for you, keep reading for our suggested Puerto Rico itinerary!
Most people visit Puerto Rico and limit their time to San Juan. However, when we visit a country, we love to explore far and wide and get an idea of the entire country. And this is really easy to do with a country as small as Puerto Rico (smaller than Connecticut). So we decided to explore 3 different areas on our 5 day Puerto Rico itinerary. We’ve included our tried and tested Puerto Rico itinerary for you below. We also thought long and hard about the things we liked best and did our best to shrink that itinerary for those short on time, providing a 3 and 4 day Puerto Rico itinerary as well. Keep reading for full Puerto Rico itinerary details.
How Much Time In Puerto Rico?
Factoring in travel time, you’ll want at least 3 days in Puerto Rico to make the journey worth it. We’ve included a 3, 4, and 5 day Puerto Rico itinerary below. As well as options for 2-3 bonus Puerto Rico day trips. So you could easily spend one full week in Puerto Rico.
When Is The Best Time To Visit Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico has a warm climate year round. However, because the rest of the world doesn’t, it is a popular winter vacation destination and us northerners flock south in the winter. But, don’t let that detour you from visiting in the winter, you’ll still find great deals as Puerto Rico can be a great budget destination.
Summer and Fall are when hurricanes can roll through the Caribbean. However, you can also visit and have a lovely vacation. It’s hard to predict hurricanes long in advance so if you are booking during this time period, make sure to make refundable reservations.
How To Get To Puerto Rico?
There are direct flights to Puerto Rico from lots of U.S. airports, even smaller ones. The most popular airport to fly into is San Juan. Good news for U.S. residents; you won’t have to go through customers as it is a U.S. territory.
Do You Need A Car In Puerto Rico?
We would recommend a car if you are planning on staying in Puerto Rico for more than three days. If you do not have a car, you’ll likely spend lots of money on day trip tours. Renting a car will save you money and allow you to explore at your own pace.
Driving in Puerto Rico is easy and reminiscent of driving the U.S.. While signs are in Spanish, the formatting of signs are in the U.S. fashion so it was easy for us to navigate the roads – with the help of Google Maps.
A Note About Our Puerto Rico Itinerary
We love independent travel. And we will always choose to do things ourselves rather than take tours or do resort activities. However, being a tropical destination, there are several all inclusive resorts and plenty of tours that make this itinerary possible for people who don’t like to travel independently. We’ve included several of the day trip tours below so you can adjust this to suit your travel style.
Puerto Rico 5 Day Itinerary
Day 1 – Luquillo Beach
First, arrive in Puerto Rico in the morning. We love early morning flights so we have plenty of time to do fun stuff. And don’t worry about being tired, this first day is a beach day.
Once you arrive, get your rental car and head east. For this Puerto Rico itinerary, we focus mainly on the eastern side of the island. Head straight to Luquillo Beach. This is one of the most beautiful and most popular beaches in Puerto Rico.
Spend the entire afternoon on the beach. Additionally, don’t forget to visit the shops on the south side of the beach. The vendors there sell food, drinks and souvenirs and the shopping area is always hopping. Grab lunch here. Additionally, there are a few vendors on the beach – one even sells pina coladas in pineapples!
Stay in this area for dinner. La Parrilla is a great restaurant that prepares seafood in traditional Puerto Rican ways.
Head to your accommodations for the evening.
Where To Stay In Puerto Rico?
Because of Puerto Rico’s small size, it’s best to stay in 1-2 areas in your time in Puerto Rico. Alternatively, you could stay in a different place each night close to the activities of the day. However, many home rentals in Puerto Rico have minimum stay requirements. So staying a few days in each spot gives you the most options.
Staying in or near Luquillo is the best option for the next two nights. We stayed in a condo overlooking La Pared Beach. There are plenty of home rental options in this area as lots of the condos are vacation homes that aren’t occupied all of the time.
Here are three great VRBO options. PS: We like VRBO better than AirBnB because they give you rewards dollars to use for future stays.
Day 2 – El Yunque
Spend the second day of your Puerto Rico itinerary exploring the rainforest.
First, drive through El Yunque National Forest. El Yunque is the only National Forest in the U.S. that is a tropical rainforest. A visit to El Yunque takes about 6 hours. Highlights in the park include seeing several waterfalls and the views from the top of the mountain. Make sure to pack a lunch as there are minimal food vendors in the park.
Next, visit the Las Paylas natural waterslide. This smooth rock waterfall serves as a waterslide for adventurous tourists. The “waterslide” is the back of a private residence. You pay a small fee to walk through the private property and explore the river. This was one of our favorite parts of this Puerto Rico itinerary. Don’t skip it!
Next, wait until nightfall and then head to Fajardo for a little nighttime bioluminescent kayak ride. Here, you can kayak in a lagoon where there are bioluminescent dinoflagellates (aka glowing water). There are several tour providers that work out of this lagoon all at the same time. We liked this vendor. They leave a little bit later, when it is darker, and they let you stay in the lagoon a little bit longer. This meant that we were the last ones in the lagoon and had the area to ourselves.
Stay one more night in your Luquillo accommodations.
Day 3 – Southern Puerto Rico
Start your morning getting checked out of your home rental. Pack up your car and head south.
Spend the morning exploring the city of Ponce. The drive to Ponce is beautiful. You go from a tropical to an arid climate and all of the vegetation changes. Once you arrive in Ponce, spend the morning exploring the town. We loved visiting the Don Q tasting room in the Castillo de Serralles and wandering the colorful downtown area!
Next, spend the afternoon driving the Pork Highway as you make your way north. Make sure you come hungry so you can enjoy the food. If you spend a lot of time in Ponce and don’t have much time to drive the Pork Highway, make sure you at least stop at El Nuevo Rancho or Lechonera Los Pinos for dinner. Both stops are near the highway and open later than other shops.
In the evening, drive to San Juan and ditch the car. We got around San Juan entirely on foot so it wasn’t worth it to have a car. First, we took a rideshare to our hotel and got checked in for the night.
We absolutely loved this amazing hotel that was a converted historical mansion. The rooms were beautiful and the hotel felt like it was from another time (while still having all of the modern amenities). Whatever hotel you book, you’ll be here for two nights.
Days 4-5 – San Juan
Spend the last two days of your Puerto Rico itinerary exploring San Juan. Normally, we don’t love cities. However, Old San Juan is amazing and doesn’t feel anything like a modern city. We spent two days exploring Old San Juan.
Some of our favorite things we did in Old San Juan were visiting Castillo San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro, wandering the colorful streets and eating empanadas at Empanadas and Beer.
At the end of your first day in San Juan, consider taking a short trip to Casa Bacardí. We did their mixology class which was lots of fun.
Lastly, fly out of San Juan in the late afternoon.
Puerto Rico 4 Day Itinerary
- Day 1 – Luquillo Beach
- Day 2 – El Yunque
- Day 3-4 – San Juan
For a 4 day Puerto Rico itinerary, following the 5 day Puerto Rico itinerary above eliminating the day spent in southern Puerto Rico. Because the day exploring El Yunque is a long day, you’ll want to stay overnight 2 nights in the Luquillo area and one night in San Juan. You’ll still want a rental car for day 1-2 of this Puerto Rico itinerary.
Puerto Rico 3 Day Itinerary
Day 1 – San Juan area
On the first day of your 3 day Puerto Rico itinerary, arrive and get checked in to your San Juan accommodations. You’ll spend each night in San Juan for this itinerary.
Next, get changed into your swim gear and head to a beach. Condado Beach is near Old San Juan and is a beautiful and popular beach. You can easily take a ride share to the beach for $10-15. Spend the rest of the day enjoying the beach.
Day 2 – El Yunque
On the second day of your 3 day Puerto Rico itinerary, take a tour of El Yunque. With only 3 days in Puerto Rico, you won’t want to waste time renting and returning a vehicle. So instead take one of these highly rated El Yunque tours that leave from the Old San Juan area.
Day 3 – San Juan
Spend the last day exploring Old San Juan. Check out our list of things to do in Old San Juan here. Try to get a flight home as late as possible and you really do want a full day to explore San Juan.
What To Do With More Time In Puerto Rico?
If you have more than 5 days in Puerto Rico, we’ve included two bonus days here. We didn’t include these days in the above Puerto Rico itineraries because they are full day trips with lots of travel time. However, if you have more time in Peurto Rico, we’re assuming you don’t mind a bit extra travel time.
Extra Day – Rincón
Drive to Cabo Rojo on the Western side of the island to begin exploring the more rugged western coast. Spend the morning explore the beaches in the Cabo Rojo area.
Next, drive a bit farther south if you are interested in seeing the pink salt flats, Las Salinas.
Next, drive to Rincón, grabbing lunch on the way.
Spend the afternoon on a beach in Rincón. There are beaches here popular for surfing, snorkeling or swimming. Choose one that best suits you.
Extra Day – Island Time
Spend a full day exploring either Vieques or Culebra. Both islands are very uninhabited and wild. The beaches on Culebra are wonderful and the snorkeling is supposed to be amazing. Vieques is popular for having the best bioluminescent lagoon in the world, Mosquito Bay. So if you do visit Vieques, make sure to stay into the night, or even overnight, so you can do a nighttime kayak tour.
If you do plan on visiting either of these island, you’ll need to either book a tour or get your ferry tickets 2 months ahead of time. There are a limited number of ferry tickets for sale to non-island residents. You can attempt to get tickets the day of, however, it is rare to find any available.
We hope this has helped you to plan your own Puerto Rico itinerary. We feel like this 5 day Puerto Rico itinerary allowed us to see a variety of the island and gave us a good idea of what island life is like. If you have any questions or comments, please leave those below and we’ll be happy to get back to you.
