Practical Information for visiting Haiti

Getting in. Toussaint Louverture International in Port-au-Prince is the main airport, with flights from Miami, New York, Fort Lauderdale, Panama City and the Dominican Republic. Hugo Chávez International at Cap-Haïtien handles some international traffic and is the better entry point for the north. Services have been suspended at times; confirm before booking anything else.

Between cities. Internal flights between Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien, Jacmel and Les Cayes are the safest option and have at times been the only one, as road movement between departments has repeatedly been blocked. The overland route to the Dominican Republic runs through crossings at Malpasse and Dajabón.

Local transport. The tap-tap — a pick-up or small bus painted in dense, bright imagery and religious slogans, one of the most recognisable things in the country — is the ordinary way people move short distances, along with shared taxis and motorcycle taxis. None is advisable for visitors without a local companion.

Driving. Roads outside the main corridors are rough, unlit and frequently washed out, and a four-wheel-drive with a local driver is the standard arrangement. Self-driving is not recommended.

The currency is the Haitian gourde (HTG), but prices are very often quoted in the Haitian dollar — an informal unit worth five gourdes, with no notes and no legal existence, which survives from a period when the gourde was pegged to the US dollar. Confirm which one a price refers to before agreeing to it. US dollars are widely accepted and often preferred.

Haiti runs on cash. Card acceptance is limited to larger hotels, a few supermarkets and some restaurants in Pétion-Ville; assume cash everywhere else. ATMs exist in the capital and in the larger towns but are unreliable and are not a plan to depend on — bring dollars in small denominations and change them as needed.

Tipping is appreciated and not obligatory; ten per cent in a restaurant is generous. Bargaining is normal in markets and for transport, and agreeing a price before the journey rather than after is the rule.

Coverage for mobile networks reaches most inhabited areas, with Digicel and Natcom as the two operators and 4G in the cities and along the main roads. Signal thins quickly in the mountains and in the far north-west and south-west.

A local SIM is inexpensive and sold widely, and is the practical way to get data; international roaming in Haiti is costly. Power is the real constraint rather than signal — the grid supplies only part of the country for part of the day, most businesses run on generators or solar, and a phone is only as connected as its last charge. A power bank matters more here than a better data plan.

Wi-Fi is available in hotels and some restaurants in Port-au-Prince, Pétion-Ville and Cap-Haïtien, usually over the same mobile network. Assume nothing outside the towns, and download maps and documents before leaving them.

Haitian Creole is spoken by essentially the entire population and has been an official language, alongside French, since 1987. French is spoken fluently by perhaps a tenth of people — the educated and the urban — and is the language of government, courts and most schooling, which is itself a long-running political argument.

Creole is not broken French. Its vocabulary is largely French-derived, its grammar is West African in structure, and it has a standard orthography that is strictly phonetic. A French speaker will catch words but not sentences.

English is not widely spoken outside the hotel trade and the diaspora. A handful of Creole phrases go a very long way: bonjou in the morning, bonswa after midday, mesi for thank you, konbyen for how much, and souple for please. Greeting someone before asking anything is expected, and skipping it reads as rudeness rather than as efficiency.

Haiti is currently among the most dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere for visitors, and this section should be read as the constraint on the whole trip rather than as a list of precautions. Most Western governments advise against all travel; some have withdrawn consular services entirely. Check your own government’s current advice, which changes frequently.

• Armed gangs control large parts of Port-au-Prince, including routes to and from the airport and the main road out of the capital. Control of specific neighbourhoods changes, and areas considered passable one month have not been the next.
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• Kidnapping for ransom is a recognised risk and has targeted foreign nationals, aid workers, clergy and the diaspora, not only the wealthy.
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• Roadblocks and fuel shortages have repeatedly cut movement between departments for days or weeks at a time, stranding travellers. Internal flights are the standard workaround when they are operating.
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• If you go anyway — and some people do, for family, work or faith reasons — the arrangement that people actually use is a trusted local contact, pre-arranged airport transfer, accommodation with real security, no movement after dark, and no fixed published schedule.

Cap-Haïtien and the north have generally been calmer than the capital, but the situation is fluid and that should not be treated as a guarantee.

Medical care is very limited. Public hospitals are under-resourced and have at times closed for lack of fuel or supplies; the few private clinics in Port-au-Prince and Pétion-Ville are the realistic option for anything serious. Medical evacuation insurance is essential, not advisable — the nearest reliable hospital care is in the Dominican Republic, Miami or Santo Domingo.

Vaccinations: routine cover plus hepatitis A and typhoid for most visitors, with rabies and hepatitis B for longer stays or rural work. Yellow fever proof is required only if arriving from a country where it is present.

Cholera has recurred since it was introduced in 2010, and outbreaks continue. Do not drink tap water anywhere: use bottled or properly treated water, including for teeth, and be careful with ice and raw produce.

Mosquito-borne disease — malaria, dengue, chikungunya and Zika are all present. Haiti is one of the few Caribbean countries where malaria is still endemic, so prophylaxis is normally recommended; use repellent and cover up at dawn and dusk.

Bring any prescription medication you need in sufficient quantity, in its original packaging. Pharmacies exist but stock is unpredictable.

Greeting properly is not optional. Haitians greet before transacting — bonjou or bonswa, a handshake, a word about how someone is — and going straight to your request reads as contempt rather than as being busy. This matters more than any other point of etiquette here.

Dress matters. Haitians dress carefully in public, often formally, and the informal traveller look reads as disrespect. Cover up for churches, government offices and any meeting.

Photography. Ask before photographing people, and expect to be refused, particularly in poorer areas and at markets. The country has been photographed extensively at its worst moments by visitors who then left, and the resulting wariness is entirely reasonable. Never photograph police, military, checkpoints or gang-controlled areas.

Vodou. Ceremonies are religious services, not performances. Attend only if genuinely invited and taken by someone who belongs there, follow their lead on photography and participation, and do not treat it as spectacle.

Drugs carry severe penalties. Homosexuality is not criminalised but social attitudes are conservative and public discretion is advisable.

Emergency numbers: 114 for the Haitian National Police and 116 for fire and ambulance. In practice, response is limited and often absent, and the realistic first call is your accommodation, your local contact or your embassy rather than an emergency line.

Medical. The better-equipped facilities are private and in the capital area — among them Hôpital Bernard Mevs and the clinics in Pétion-Ville — along with Hôpital Universitaire Justinien in Cap-Haïtien. Payment is required up front, in cash, including for emergencies. Serious cases are evacuated abroad, which is why evacuation cover is essential.

Consular. Register with your embassy on arrival if it offers a registration scheme, and keep its contact details and location offline. Several countries have reduced or suspended consular services in Haiti, so confirm what is actually available before you travel.

Keep offline copies of your passport, insurance policy and evacuation cover details, and keep enough cash in US dollars to pay for an unplanned departure.