Port-au-Prince
Gingerbread trim and a view of the harbor are about all Port-au-Prince has in common with other Caribbean capitals. It's crammed with people soldiering on amidst rundown buildings, open sewers, brightly colored murals and the haphazard lurching and zooming of tap taps, public buses emblazoned with fine art and Creole sayings. Much of the activity is centered on the Marché de Fer (the Iron Market), a 19th-century iron and tin mix of Parisian class and African style. It's chaos inside, packed with stalls, vendors and piles of fruit, baskets, soap, religious totems and toys. It's hot, noisy and likely to overwhelm the faint of heart.
Good places to seek post-shopping repose are the Cathédrale de Port-au-Prince, where the decor owes as much to Africa as to Rome, and the Cathédrale de la Ste Trinité, where you can gaze up at murals by some of the country's most famous artists. The Musée d'Art Haïtien du College St Pierre has an excellent collection of paintings. The Musée National is more of a national curio cabinet, featuring King Christophe's suicide pistol and a rusty anchor reputed to have been salvaged from Columbus' Santa Maria. There are areas of the capital travelers should avoid, chiefly the shantytowns on the northern edge of the city.
Pétionville
In the hills to the southeast of Port-au-Prince, Pétionville is as close as the country comes to quintessential Caribbean resort culture. Though linked to the capital by three throughways, it's a different world. Glittering shops, clubs and restaurants cater to the country's elite classes who have fled the grinding poverty below. It is generally cooler and breezier in the hills, making for welcome respite from a day in the city.
Galleries sell Haitian art and restaurants serve some of the best French cuisine in the country. The Jane Barbancourt Distillery in Boutiller, a few miles east of Port-au-Prince, makes nearly two dozen varieties of rum, including flavors like coffee, coconut and hibiscus. You can taste samples and buy bottles at bargain prices.
Jacmel
This old coffee port was once the jewel of the southern coast, decorated in French colonial architecture and fringed with black-sand beaches. Duvalier cut off trade to the city in the 1950s and sent the town into a decades-long decline. Though it's a little shabby, it's much calmer than Port-au-Prince and the 19th-century buildings are better preserved. A recent renaissance has attracted artists from all over Haiti, Europe and the USA.
Many of Jacmel's Victorian gingerbread homes now house galleries and shops. The city also enjoys a bustling market, open on Saturday. Nearby is the Bassins Bleu, a series of tiered waterfalls and pools.
The city also has a strong tradition of Vodou, and there are several temples worth visiting. Jacmel's pre-Lent Mardi Gras festivities are unique: Surrealistic street theater involving actors in enormous papier-mâché masks act out parables of good versus evil. There is little of the sequin-and-sparkle of Carnivals elsewhere in the hemisphere; this is a celebration true to its medieval roots.
Cap-Haïtien
Haiti's second city, with a population of around 100,000, has more of a Latin feel than the capital. The Spanish-influenced architecture has bestowed on Haiti's former capital, once called the 'Paris of the Antilles,' a grid of shady streets that are easy to navigate and pleasant to stroll. Orange peels drying on sunny surfaces throughout the city are destined to one day lend their flavor to luxury liquors Grand Marnier and Cointreau, but before shipping off to France fill the tropical air with a lazy citrus aroma.
Much of Haitian history has taken place in and around the northern city, and there are several forts in various stages of dillapidation lining the once strategically important coast. Sans Souci Palais, commissioned by Henri Christophe in 1810 as a capital building and rival to Versailles in France, lies in elegant ruin outside of Cap-Haïtien. Five kilometers (3mi) away is The Citadelle, the impenetrable fortress that may be Haiti's most recognizable landmark. Built over 15 years by more than 20,000 'workers,' (read: slave laborers) it held enough supplies to outfit 5000 troops and the royal family for an entire year behind 40m-tall (130ft-tall) walls. It's now a national park.
If you'd rather recline somewhere sandy in the sun, some of the country's best beaches are along Rue 21, winding into the hills northwest of the cape. Here, too, is some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in Haiti, with lush forested hills tumbling into the Atlantic Ocean

Most of Haiti's good beaches are north of Port-au-Prince and northwest of Cap-Haïtien. If you'd rather stay underwater, be sure to check out the diving. The beaches are surrounded by coral reefs that took their toll on ships lost by the Dutch, French and Spanish during the 17th and 18th centuries. At Amani, near St Marc, divers descend the famous Zombie Hole, a 200m-deep hole that is home to what is believed to be the world's largest sea sponge, the Elephant's Ear. Near the coast of La Gonâve is a spectacular wall covered with black coral.
Hiking is also popular, particularly in Macaya and La Visite national parks. Cloud forests, alpine meadows, waterfalls and complex limestone cave systems all await exploration. There are also a few places that offer horseback riding, but ask to inspect the horses before making a commitment.
Wherever brushy undercover or remnant forests survive, bird watching is likely to be rewarding. Flamingos, herons, ibises and many species of duck make their homes on the water, while more flamboyant Hispaniolan parakeets, golden swallows and Antillean siskins are common wherever there are pine trees. Several species of hummingbirds make their homes here as well; bring binoculars.