Upozornenie — cestovanie neodporúčame · overené 5. 8. 2026
Haiti
Most foreign ministries advise against ALL travel to Haiti due to gang violence, kidnapping risk and the security situation in Port-au-Prince. Standard scores are suspended while this alert is active.
Oficiálne odporúčanie →Read the advisory first: most foreign ministries currently advise against all travel to Haiti, and this route is published for the day that changes, not as an invitation for today. It runs the north — the Citadelle, Sans-Souci and the Cap-Haïtien coast — where the first free Black republic built its fortresses, then south to Jacmel.
Cap-Haïtien
The second city, and the one the north is organised around. Colonial grid, gingerbread balconies, a waterfront that faces the Atlantic rather than the Caribbean. Arrive with your accommodation confirmed and your ground transport arranged in advance — this is not a country to improvise arrivals in.
The Citadelle
Henri Christophe built it after independence against a French return that never came: 365 cannon on a peak at 900 m (2,950 ft), the largest fortress in the Americas, and a UNESCO site since 1982. The climb from Milot takes about an hour on foot, or you ride up. Nothing prepares you for the scale of the walls.
Sans-Souci
The palace below the fortress was Christophe's Versailles and it was wrecked by the 1842 earthquake, so what stands is a shell of brick and stair. It is more affecting than the intact version would be — a king who had been enslaved, building a European court in the hills, and the whole thing lasting nineteen years.
The Côte du Nord
West of Cap-Haïtien the coast runs to Labadie, a fishing village on a bay reached by boat rather than road. The cruise terminal next door is fenced off from the country it sits in, which is its own kind of lesson. Cormier Plage is the calmer stop.
Vertières and the Plaine du Nord
The battlefield on the edge of Cap-Haïtien where the colonial army was beaten in November 1803, six weeks before independence was declared. In late July, Plaine-du-Nord holds the Saint-Jacques pilgrimage, where Catholic saint and Vodou lwa are honoured in the same mud pool and nobody finds that a contradiction.
South to Gonaïves
A long road day down the coast. Gonaïves is where Dessalines declared independence on 1 January 1804, making Haiti the first nation founded by formerly enslaved people. The town has been flooded and rebuilt more than once and wears it.
Port-au-Prince, briefly
The capital carries the sharpest end of the advisory and this route treats it as a transit point. If conditions allow a stop, MUPANAH — the national pantheon museum — holds the anchor of the Santa María and the crown of Henri Christophe, and it is the single best hour in the country for understanding the rest of it.
Kenscoff and the pine forest
Above the capital the road climbs to 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and the temperature drops with it. Kenscoff has a market and mountain air; Fort Jacques, built in 1804 against the same French return, looks down over the whole bay.
Jacmel
Over the mountains to the south coast and a town of iron-fronted merchant houses shipped in from France in the nineteenth century. Jacmel makes things: papier-mâché masks, painting, metalwork. Its pre-Lenten carnival is the least commercial major carnival in the Caribbean.
Bassin Bleu
Three cobalt pools stacked up a gorge behind Jacmel, reached on foot with a local guide and a rope for the last drop into the deepest one. Then Ti Mouillage beach in the afternoon, which is where Jacmel goes on a Sunday.
Dobré vedieť
This is the important paragraph. At the time of writing, most foreign ministries advise against all travel to Haiti because of gang control of parts of Port-au-Prince, kidnapping risk and the collapse of ordinary policing. Following this route today would mean travelling against that advice, and your insurance will almost certainly be void if you do. We publish it because the country deserves coverage and because advisories change — not because we think you should go now.
If and when the advisory eases, the shape above still holds: fly into Cap-Haïtien rather than Port-au-Prince, base in the north, and treat the capital as a transit point rather than a destination.
Nothing here works without a driver and a local contact arranged before you land. Public transport exists — tap-taps and buses — and it is not the way to move around as a foreign visitor while the security situation is what it is. Never travel between towns after dark.
Cash is US dollars and Haitian gourdes; cards work in a handful of Pétion-Ville hotels and nowhere else. There is no functioning tourist infrastructure to fall back on if a plan fails, so every night should be booked before you start.
Check your own foreign ministry the week you travel, not the month you book. This page is not a substitute for that.
Kratšie či dlhšie?
The north alone — Cap-Haïtien, the Citadelle, Sans-Souci and the coast — flying in and out of Cap-Haïtien without touching the capital.
Add the south-west: Les Cayes, Port-Salut's beaches and Île-à-Vache, which is reached by boat and is a different country in temperament.