Port-au-Prince rewards travellers who spend in gourdes, not dollars. Street griot plates run 250-400 HTG, shared tap-taps cross the city for 25-50 HTG, and the best views — Boutilliers ridge, Champ de Mars at dusk — cost nothing at all.
The 6-hectare central plaza is free and open dawn to dusk, holding bronze statues of Dessalines, Pétion, Christophe and the Nèg Mawon (Unknown Maroon, 1967) with his conch shell and broken shackle. Shoeshiners and domino players fill the benches by 09:00.
The pink-and-white 1914 cathedral collapsed in the January 2010 quake and its roofless walls and rose-window frame still stand on Rue Dr Aubry. Viewing from the perimeter fence is free; reconstruction has been stop-start since 2017.
Three of the famed 1950-51 Haitian biblical murals by Obin, Bazile and Benoit survived the 2010 collapse and have been restored on the surviving apse wall of the Holy Trinity compound. Entry is by donation to the caretaker.
Pétionville's leafy square at 380 m sits cooler than downtown, ringed by the 1930s Saint-Pierre church, book vendors and peanut-brittle (tablèt pistach) sellers. Free to sit; the evening crowd builds from 17:30 as the hills catch the last light.
The city's working produce market — mangoes francique, breadfruit, djon-djon mushrooms and cassava bread — is far cheaper than Pétionville groceries. A bag of mangoes runs 100-200 HTG, a stack of kasav 50 HTG. Cash only, small notes.
Fried pork griot with pikliz (fiery pickled cabbage), banann peze and diri kole is the standard workers' lunch, sold from charcoal grills and marmites along Rue Capois. A full plate is 250-400 HTG, half that without meat.
Behind the Iron Market's tourist aisles, the pèpè stalls sell secondhand imported clothing by the piece from 50 HTG and vetiver-root baskets from 300 HTG. Bargaining halves the opening price as a matter of routine.
Roadside bars along the Panaméricaine pour Barbancourt 3-star by the shot for 100-150 HTG and Prestige beer for around 125 HTG — a fraction of the hotel-terrace price a block uphill. Compas plays from speaker stacks after dark.
Haiti's painted pickup-truck buses run fixed routes for 25-50 HTG a leg. Ride Pétionville to Laboule 12, then walk or hop a moto (about 250 HTG) up the Boutilliers road as the pines and cooler air take over.
The ridge above Pétionville opens onto the whole Cul-de-Sac plain, the bay and Île de la Gonâve. Roadside craft sellers work the pull-offs but the view itself costs nothing; temperatures sit several degrees below downtown.
Built 1804-06 on Dessalines's orders against a French return, this hilltop fort at 1,300 m in the pine forest above Fermathe charges a small entry and fills with picnicking Haitian families on Sundays. Cannon emplacements and ramparts are intact.
The roadside market at Fermathe sells mountain-grown coffee, honey and cool-climate vegetables at grower prices, and the mission's terrace above the road gives a free southward view over the Massif de la Selle foothills at golden hour.